We met with Kinshasa-based art platform Laboratoire Kontempo to discuss their extended practice through the Congolese capital. Together with Cameroonian curator Dzekashu MacViban, Lydia Schellhammer and Christ Mukenge from Laboratoire Kontempo discuss their upcoming curatorial project “Kokende Liboso Eza Kokoma Te”, which centres around proverbs in different cultures through the African continent.

OYO Project has always been a nomadic project. At first, we worked in several different public spaces. But after a while, working in the street became dangerous because the police wouldn’t let the youth assemble in public. Young people also had a hard time staying focused in open spaces.

We’re in the 1990s in Ngbwaka, a district of Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. This district was renamed during the Zairianisation period (1971–1997), by the Ngbwaka, a forest people whose territory stretches from the province of Équateur to the north-west of the country and beyond.