Biography
Ced’art Tamasala is an artist who works with sculpture and drawing, having developed his work at the White Cube, a permanent art centre on a former Unilever plantation in DR Congo, which has become the cornerstone of the Lusanga International Research Center for Art and Economic Inequality (LIRCAEI). Tamasala is also a member of the cooperative Cercle d'Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise (CATPC) in Lusanga (2016–present). With the proceeds of artwork sales, CATPC members are able to buy back the land that had been confiscated and taken from them by Unilever, and are now transforming it back into rich and diverse, ecological and egalitarian gardens: the post-plantation.
Tamasala’s drawings and sculptures have been exhibited internationally, most notably at Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2018–2019), where the entire CATPC show consisted of his work. At a conference co-organised by the Ruskin School of Art at the Mori Art Museum in December 2018, he called for the repatriation of Congolese artworks to the plantation, rather than to museums in global cities.
Tamasala’s work has been featured in numerous solo shows of CATPC and in wider group shows worldwide, including Catastrophe and the Power of Art, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2018–2019); The Way Things Run, Part II: Cargo, PS120, Berlin (2018); #whatif, Kunsthal Charlottenburg, Copenhagen (2018); SUPERPOSITION: Equilibrium & Engagement, 21st Biennale of Sydney (2018); The Land We Live In: The Land We Left Behind, Hauser & Wirth, Somerset, UK (2018); The Repatriation of The White Cube, LIRCAEI, Lusanga (2017); Cercle d’Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise, SculptureCenter, New York (2017); The Armory Show (Focus Section), New York (2017); and Bread and Roses, Museum for Modern Art, Warsaw (2016).
Tamasala studied for one year at the Academie des Beaux Arts, Kinshasa.
Born in 1986 in Katanga, DR Congo, he currently lives and works in Lusanga, DR Congo.
SAF participation:
White Cube (2020) Global Museum Launch Middle East Premiere and Discussion
Related Content
White Cube (2020) Global Museum Launch Middle East Premiere and Discussion
White Cube (2020) is a feature-length film that documents the successful attempt by Congolese plantation workers to co-opt the ‘white cube’ and buy back their land to secure it for future generations. Sharjah Art Foundation and The Africa Institute will host the Global Museum Launch Middle East Premiere of White Cube followed by a discussion about the project’s implications.
To watch the film screening, click here.
To register for- the online discussion, click here.