SAVVY Contemporary: Urban Trajectories

New Live Performance & Artist Talk with Julie Djikey

Curated by Nathalie Mba Bikoro

Performance is a weapon, an armour to convey messages of social degradation through visual interpretations as a way of subversion and push shifts in everyday experience. Julie's work sharpens narratives of the state of ecologies and economic injustices that have so much affected the urban landscape in her home of Kinshasa. Julie believes that the body can be both subject and object in visual metamorphoses, a site for gathering and questioning, revealing current views of urban trajectories in imagining future landscapes.

Julie Djikey is a performance artist who addresses issues of sustainability and environment, the construction of social spaces and socio-cultural disparities within society. Djikey’s works question how biodegradability and recyclability, sustainable development and renewable energies impact our communities, influence subjectivities and various ecologies, as seen in her most prominent performance piece "Ozonisation". Her recent works reflect on human adaptations between traditions and modernities through the nuances of domesticity.

Julie Djikey was born in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, in 1987. Djikey has performed at l'Institut Français de Kinshasa (2012), "Ozonisation" Phase 2 at RAVY Festival Rencontres d'arts visuels de Yaoundé au Cameroun (2014), YANGO Biennale de Kinshasa (2014), "TI WAPI?" at ROND POINT MAGAZIN - Kinshasa RDC (2015), and "Ozonisation" in Hannover Germany (2015).

SAVVY Contemporary presents a new work by Julie exploring the feminist experience in urban traditions and will be followed by a public discussion panel together with Nathalie Mba Bikoro about art practices in urban visual fields to what could be considered altered Afro-Future terrains.

Nathalie Anguezomo Mba Bikoro is SAVVY Contemporary's curator of Performance Programmes.

Nathalie is a performance artist, curator an lecturer. Her curatorial focus reframes the contextualisation of creative multi-disciplinarity in visual practices through the process of collaboration with communities of the peripheries. Notably her curatorial projects include among many others Squat Museum in Libreville, Gabon; (2009); Hydra Radio Tamil Napu India (2015); Perpendicular in Brazil (2011); Performancear O Morir Norogachi Mexico (2014); ArtLab spaces for transiant digital Afro-Future arts London (2012); Au Hazard Balthazar in Bogota (2014) and Squat Monument in Berlin (2015).

She is an Associate Lecturer in Political Visual Cultures, Philosophy & Fine Arts. Her most recent significant contributions have been shown in Dak'art Biennale Senegal (2012); Smithsonian Museum of African Art Washington DC (2013); Tiwani Contemporary London (2012); Kalao Pan African Galleries Bilbao (2014); 798 Art District Gallery Beijing (2015); Museum of African Art Johannesburg (2011); Michael Stevenson Gallery Cape Town (2011); Tate Britain London (2009); Oxford Museum UK (2014); Bedfordbury Gallery London (2010); South London Gallery (2010).