Po B. K. Lomami (Pauline Batamu Kasiwa Lomami) is an indisciplinary and interventionist artist. They are a Congodescendant (DRC) from Belgium currently based in Tiohtià:ke / Mooniyang / Montréal.
Exploring super-performance and failure, Lomami’s practice is anchored in performance art, informed by principles of Afrofuturism and crip time, and revolves around the displacement of work and the design of possible collective futures. They also work with poetry and photography, and create technological installations (video, sound, coding, sensors) based on their performances. They build a form of super-archive that doesn’t fix the moment of the performances in processed documents, but instead takes the shape of installations that explore super-performativity as an opportunity to feel someone and something that is not there anymore. Their work has been presented in Belgium, Sweden, New York and Canada, and their texts have been featured in French, Québécois and African books and journals.
Lomami holds a bachelor’s degree (2011) and a master’s degree (2014) in Business Engineering from the University of Namur, Belgium and a Graduate Diploma in Communication Studies from Concordia University (2022), Canada. They are currently pursuing the MFA program in Studio Arts – Intermedia at Concordia University for which they received the SSHRC and the FRQSC research scholarships, the Dave McGary Memorial Award in Fine Arts, the Concordia Fine Arts Scholarship, and the Desjardins Foundation Scholarship. However, their performance and intervention practices are separated from their academic education. They are a co-founder of Harambec – Reviving the Black Feminist Collective, DC – Art indisciplinaire (a crip artist-run center), and CHEFF – Fédération des jeunes LGBTQIA+.
1 May 2024
