How did you first get interested in art and photography?
Actually, as far as I can remember, I’ve always been interested, intrigued and attracted to art. I can say that my parents are very sensitive to art and gave my siblings and I a certain sense of aesthetic and curiosity. All my siblings are artists actually. So as I said before, art caught me when my professional career had already started. It caught me in another way because it was less innocent. It was really a way for me to express myself and find a place of belonging as a Congolese woman living in Belgium and in this society in general. I saw art as a tool for emancipation and as a starting point to discuss questions related to history, sociology, psychology, politics and cetera. It’s when the very missed Okwui Enwezor was appointed curator of the 56th Venice Biennale that he titled “All the World's Futures” that I made the conscious decision to get more involved with African artists as a curator. In 2017, I worked for the Biennale of Lubumbashi in D.R. Congo which was initially a biennale dedicated to photography. Even though the identity of the biennale evolved by the time I worked there, photography occupies till now an important place in this art event. Also because one of its founders, the artist Sammy Baloji, is a photographer himself. I can say that my eye on photography got sharper thanks to that experience and the photographers that were invited like Sarah Waiswa, Simon Menner and of course Sammy Baloji.

How much does your psychology background influence your curatorial work?\

Part of my curatorial work is founded mainly on the dialogue that I build with artists. I'm not talking about a dialogue on the occasion of an event or a vernissage, but rather a dialogue that takes place in time and at its own pace. I would even say in a rather organic and slowly way. I don't know if it's only my training as a psychologist that pushes me to say that. There must be some of that but there is also a sincere interest on my part in what an artist can bring in terms of a vision of society and in what he can bring to me intellectually and spiritually. That doesn't mean that the goal would be to understand every aspect of it and dissect it, but rather to work together and nourish each other in order to show his work in the most consistent way. I wrote a text a few months ago for the catalog of the 2019 Bamako photographic encounters. It is a text that I entitled "Search for totality through inner dialogue" which describes how an image can respond to the inner dialogue of the artist but also to the inner dialogue of the person contemplating the image. This dialogue is of course influenced by experience, whether individual or collective. Here is an excerpt of the text: “The image-based divagation resulting from internal dialogue thus rejects the idea of image as representation: Rather, it approaches the idea of image as a world, as a totality. These two types of divagation, one of language and one of image, are not exclusive; they can complement each other. Hence, we can imagine that the interior world, this flow of ideas and associations made between them are accompanied by images, and vice versa. This renders the image at least equally as significant as speech, writing, or even semantics.” This short extract shows how in my practice I consider image as fully a part of my dialogue with artists. In addition, in 2019 I spent most of the year exchanging with the contemporary and multidisciplinary artist Pascale Marthine Tayou. This dialogue took place throughout his preparation for his solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Ostend. It was important for the curator of the exhibition, Mieke Mels, and for the artist himself to turn the creative process characterized by questioning and hesitation into a work in itself and a series of texts I wrote for his catalog. I think she was right to do so. I really enjoyed doing that as I consider the conversation and the process as worthy as the final result. Maybe that's how my work as a psychologist finds its place in the field of art.

Do you think photography is a universal language?
Frankly, I'm not sure what the universal word means anymore. This word has been so overused that it seems to refer to one culture, a way of approaching the world that obscures all the others. If there is a universality to which I adhere, if we have to call it that way, it is one that takes into account in the same way all cultures and all visions of the world, no matter how small a minority may be. In this respect philosopher and poet Edouard Glissant inspires me enormously with his concept of totality. Indeed, his concept of totality should not be confused with the concept of generality that tends to retain and highlight the most visible elements, in every sense of the word, and to keep in the dark those that, according to some parameters, seem to be less important. Rather, totality is the idea that each and every element in a particular whole has a constituent value equally as important as any other. In fact, each and every element, even the slightest, should not be overlooked and remain connected with the rest. It is all of these different constituent contents that form the body of the totality. Coming back to photography, the relationship to the image, whether one is the creator or the observer, comes with a whole intimate, personal, collective and even political baggage. The image sometimes comes to play a role; the image can also be manipulated. In any case behind the taking of an image, there is always an intention which indicates the place and the time in which one positions oneself. But in any observation and interpretation of an image, there is also the intervention of the context. So, I would say that I’m not interested in the concept of universality as it is used for the last two centuries. However, what deserves to be debated, is the value that is given to one’s gaze. What type of gaze is important today? What do we do with women's view of the world? Africans' view of the world? And therefore what kind of narrative is given space?  These are the questions that interest me more.  

What makes an image stand out more than another in your opinion?
I have a tendency to think that an image alone does not exist. An image interacts with what surrounds it. An image informs, provokes emotions, intrigues, worries ... But if it does all this it is because it is not enough by itself. It completes, transgresses, opposes the flow of images that crosses our consciousness and I would even say our unconscious. It is therefore important for me that art, and therefore photography too, is the place where different narratives multiply. The different narratives but also the different aesthetics.  I have a particular interest in the transformation that an artist can make to an image. The composition of a new image by collage for example or the staging. These are practices that in my opinion offer a kind of freedom to the artist to make a composition, to tell untold stories and to make unthought links between past and present for example. The use of photographic archives in this exercise is particularly interesting.

Do you think art should be political?
If being political means taking a particular look at the world and expressing it in one way or another, I would tend to say that art is necessarily political. Art is not neutral, nor is it objective. It is therefore political. Furthermore, art circuits, especially in Africa, are linked to foreign institutions that are attached to political agendas. This creates a context in which artists and cultural operators navigate in an environment of funding and support that expects certain results. I’m currently working on a Kinshasa based project called “Laboratoire Kontempo” initiated by Congolese artists that tackles this problematic of the “artists-institutions” articulation and its influence on artist’s creativity. Beyond the art circuit, I have in my curatorial work a particular attraction for artistic content that evokes a positioning in the world and can thus provoke discussion and debate. Art in its full potential should be able to bring people together to create political content. And by politics, I mean the debate and discussion that people without positions of political power can generate.

Do you think your work as a curator has a political meaning?
I made the choice in my career to focus on African artists in particular, and black artists in general, even though I work also with non-African artists. The projects in which I am involved are often located in Africa. I am interested without any hesitation in the fate of the black person in the world. So yes, clearly my work as a curator is politically positioned just as my work as a psychologist is.

What motivates you to keep on doing your work? \

I think that art is one of the most natural human activities. So that means that as long as there is life, there will be art and motives for creation. I also think it's important to remember that in many parts of the world, crises, whether political, economic, environmental or social, happen repeatedly. Even in these places, art is made. We are living in an eminently challenging period that should make us reflect on how we consume art, how we circulate it and how we integrate it into our lives and into the public space. It can therefore also be an opportunity to be inspired and learn from those places in the world that unfortunately are in some ways ahead of us in managing life in times of crisis. So that's what actually motivates me: the imagination of what comes during and after the crisis. The imagination of what heals us collectively and individually through art.

What’s the most challenging thing about your work? And the most rewarding?
I think the challenge is actually a kind of reward in itself for me. The challenge feeds my imagination and questions me. And I think everyone needs to be in that uncomfortable position from time to time. I have worked a lot on the African continent for my projects: in Congo, Senegal and Burkina Faso. The goal when I work there, while I live in Belgium, is to use imagination and creativity to make sure that the projects take place and that they speak to the public. In Europe, too, challenges exist when it comes to defending contemporary African creation. I would even say that they are more important than elsewhere. Indeed, most European countries, including Belgium, have not yet settled their colonial past and this has an impact on cultural institutions as well as in the public space. African artists, African curators as well as African cultural operators are therefore in a position where almost most of the time they have to fight for African and black dignity. It is an exercise of every moment that requires an awareness of the history of black presence and a decolonial consciousness that for me implies the awareness that it is necessary to imagine a new society with what it implies for the art sector. The debate around colonial statutes is a good example of this.

Is there a work that recently particularly caught your attention?
I really enjoy the works of the following artists: Kriss munsya, Gosette lubondo, Rahima Gambo, Malebona Maphutse, Michele Magema and many more.