FRIDAY AUGUST 07, 2015
IN MEMORIAM:
PHOTOGRAPHER
KIRIPI KATEMBO SIKU
(DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO)
Photographer Kiripi Katembo Siku at work.
The sad news of Kiripi Katembo Siku’s passing crossed my Twitter feed today via OkayAfrica. A master of both the moving and still image, Siku was a Founding Director of Mutotu film production company and Executive Director of the Yango Biennale based in Kinshasa, Congo. He also founded the Kinshasa-based collective Yebela for photographers and video artists.
A 2009 CNN article on contemporary African filmmakers featured a young Siku and his genius 7-minute film, Voiture en Carton (Cardboard Car). To avoid DRC government censorship laws, Siku made his short film by attaching his cell phone to a child’s toy car which he then had a young girl pull behind her as she walked the streets of Kinshasa.
Yet it was Siku’s 2009 series Un regard that made waves in the art photography world. Currently on view through November 15, 2015 in the Beauté Congo – 1926-2015 – Congo Kitoko group exhibition at Foundation Cartier in Paris, below are a selection of images from Un regard. Shot through the reflection of pools of water, these multi-layered images present color, street photography like we’ve never seen it before.
Here’s a bit about the series in the photographer’s own words:
This project simply takes a look at a very visible fact of life in the city I live in: the pollution of the urban environment. With pollution comes sickness: malaria and typhoid fever. I hold in my hands a tool capable of showing what some refuse to consider as the appalling management of the urban environment. Photography also provides a way of seeing beyond reflection as it opens up a poetic window on another world, the world in which I live. I want each image to tell of the children born here who have to grow up surrounded by pools of water, and of the families who survive while others leave to live in exile. To me, this is one way of campaigning for a healthier environment and to denounce through images what Kinshasa’s inhabitants see as fate.
You can also watch an interview with Siku via Foundation Cartier, in which he describes the challenges of photographing in such a dense, urban environment. Leaving this world at such a young age (he was only 36), we can only hope that Siku’s life/work will be immortalized in monograph form and within the annals of African photography history.
Rest in Peace, Kiripi Katembo Siku.
From the series, Un regard, 2009.Copyright Kiripi Katembo Siku