Artist in the City 2016

Alkantara
CCB
Companhia Nacional de Bailado
Culturgest
Festas de Lisboa
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian
Maria Matos Teatro Municipal
São Luiz Teatro Municipal
Teatro Nacional D. Maria II
Temps d’Images Lisboa

After Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker (2012) and Tim Etchells (2014), Lisbon now welcomes the Congolese artist Faustin Linyekula at the 2016 edition of the biennial festival Artista na Cidade (The Artist in the City). A truly unique festival in both national and international art scenes, this project brings different cultural venues and entities together which together offer a wide range of events to the general public from one single foreign artist. The Artista na Cidade project aims to not only exhibit already existing artworks, but, more importantly, to drive collaborations between artists and organisations in Lisbon and the guest artist. The Artista na Cidade project aims to not only exhibit already existing artworks, but, more importantly, to drive collaborations between artists and organisations in Lisbon and the guest artist. In choosing Faustin Linyekula, the biennial festival Artista na Cidade invites an artist who employs various art forms – dance, theatre, music, video, literature – to create an outspoken political work. Born in a country of great contrasts and contradictions, Faustin Linyekula never gets tired of speaking about it – the Democratic Republic of Congo, former Zaire, former Belgian Congo, former independent state of Congo. Throughout his work, he presents a continuous narrative of colonial and post-colonial (if any) history, he mourns the complete devastation of his country at the hands of never-ending wars, he exposes the ruling kleptocracy, and he denounces the misery and hunger of his fellow countrymen… Like an unremitting messenger, he declares the State a failure and shouts out loud and clear that the future is on its way; that what the country needs is more more more… future. However, Faustin would not be Faustin if he did not also sing of his mother country’s beauty, of its inhabitants’ joy and generosity, of their resilient spirit and hope that never seems to fade. A deeply human and pacifying poetry runs throughout his work, which can be interpreted as an attempt to create memory in a country where everything becomes undone, in a society where the remains of a violent and bloody history prevail. In Faustin’s poetry, personal anecdotes and descriptions of daily life in the city’s popular neighbourhoods sharply contrast with the country’s political reality. Consequently, Faustin does not define himself as just an artist with a political conscience, but also as a citizen, having a role to play in his society. It is this kind of activism that feeds his ambitious project Studios Kabako, founded in 2001 in Kinshasa and moved in 2006 in the city of Kisangani, the city he grew up in. Studios Kabako organise workshops, manage a recording studio, receive resident artists, organise performances and concerts in Kisangani’s popular neighbourhoods and also produce works by Faustin as well as many other Congolese artists. Studios Kabako is much more than just an artistic project; it is a community which lives intensely together, in a society where you must constantly fight in order to keep it alive.