Sammy Baloji


Sammy Baloji is a photographer from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He works in Lubumbashi and Brussels, and held exhibitions in Amsterdam, Paris, Brussels, Bilbao, Cape Town and Bamako.

Background

Baloji was born in Lubumbashi on December 29, 1978. He graduated in literature and human science at the University of Lubumbashi.
After his study he first began to work as a cartoonist. Later he specialized in video art and photography. He made much of his work in his own province of Katanga. Recurrent in his work are ethnographic exploitation, architecture and urbanism, like the exploitation of man en environment in the Congolese urban landscape.

Exhibitionshttp://www.artfacts.net/en/artist/sammy-baloji-123849/profile.html#biography

Solo shows
Group shows
In 2007 Baloji was twice awarded at the African Photography Encounters in Bamako, Mali, with the Prize Africa in Creation and the Prize for the Image. In 2009 het was honored with a Prince Claus Award from the Netherlands, for "his highly original inscription of the painful history of human and environmental exploitation into the present-day landscape, for bringing Congo's current realities to an international platform, for his important contribution to the memory of the Congo providing a new reading of the present, and for his challenging demonstration that development can only be realized after duly taking into account the traumas of the past."