2024 Sound residence: Junior Mvunzi

Winning project: ‘Musika Automatika'

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For the third edition of the sound residency programme at the musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, the jury selected the project by artist Junior Mvunzi.

Musical automatons made from recycled materials

Musika Automatika is a bold exploration combining experimental music and popular sounds inspired by rumba. In collaboration with Austrian drummer Andi Stecher, Junior Mvunzi has developed an innovative approach using recycled materials to create automata that replace conventional instruments. The essence of the approach lies in transforming waste materials into original musical objects. These automata, once archived by a control table similar to a DJ turntable designed by the artist, generate sounds that become the raw material for this creation. The producer then intervenes to capture and transform these noises into a harmonious melody over which Junior Mvunzi places his voice with lyrics evoking rumba themes such as love relationships and the relationship to one's homeland. By exploring the museum's sound archives and integrating them into this artistic approach, the artist seeks to create a work that transcends the boundaries between genres and eras, while exploring the links between popular culture and heritage - pushing back the boundaries of experimental music by integrating sound elements from the past, rooted in the museum's rich heritage.

A dialogue with musical traditions from around the world

The Musika Automatika project is part of an ethnographic dynamic that puts into perspective the way in which music, through the creation of automata from recycled materials, can transcend cultural and temporal boundaries. By exploring the sounds of these automata, inspired by reinvented waste materials, Junior Mvunzi aims to create a musical experience that engages with musical traditions from all over the world. This approach is not limited to the simple use of sound materials, but aims to establish a creative dialogue with the musical heritage preserved by the museum. The sound archives thus become essential components in the creation of a contemporary work, uniting past and present through the experimental and popular music of rumba.

Junior Mvunzi wants to create an installation combining the sound dimension of this project with visual works to offer visitors to the museum an immersive experience. Musika Automatika can therefore be seen as a multidisciplinary performance offering a complete sensory experience.

Photograph by Junior Mvunzi © Christophe Ecoffet

Biography

Junior Mvunzi

Junior Mvunzi (born 1990) is a multidisciplinary artist from Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Trained as an electrician and mechanic, he attended the Kinshasa School of Fine Arts. His practice combines art, science and technology, and ranges from sculpture and performance to film-making and music production.

Junior Mvunzi is dedicated to transforming all kinds of waste, particularly electronic waste such as motherboards, telephones and cables that symbolise the omnipresence of digital technology in our lives. Using these materials, he creates imposing costumes, masks, paintings and jewellery that draw attention to the contrast between the geological wealth of the DRC and a reality marked by precariousness. Junior Mvunzi works mainly with copper, aluminium and plastic - which litter the streets and pollute the rivers. Each of his creations is a reflection on the world around us and on issues of universal concern.

His commitment to the environment and homage to the ancestors are essential dimensions of his work, and linked themes because, in Congolese and Bantu tradition in particular, the ancestors are the guardians of the Earth - a sacred space bequeathed to us by the ancestors, and of which we must be the guardians. Her works are intended as possible responses to environmental issues. His sculptures raise questions about cultural identity, mysticism and the post-colonial context - art as a refuge from a tumultuous environment: ‘I conceive of a “bizarro” world through a futuristic and disturbing aesthetic, a dystopian universe from which my creations come, warning of the worst that the future could hold.' Junior Mvunzi has taken part in several group exhibitions in Kinshasa, at the Institut Français and the Goethe Institute. In 2018, he won 3rd place in the Art Tembo competition with an imposing sculpture representing a branded bottle, made from metal and other recycled materials. He is currently represented by the Paris gallery Les Enfants terribles.

Le Fresnoy - Studio national des arts contemporains, located in Tourcoing, is a centre of excellence in French artistic, audiovisual and digital education, whose teaching programme emphasises the cross-fertilisation of disciplines and the production of works on a real scale using professional production resources. The school's artistic director, Alain Fleischer, also encourages the transition from traditional modern tools, media and languages (cinema, photography, video, sound and music creation) to the world of emerging technologies and digital arts. Each year, the institution welcomes some of the most renowned artists on the international scene, across all disciplines. These include Jean-Luc Godard, Anne Teresa de Keersmaeker, Sarkis, Gary Hill, Choï, Charles Sandison, Ryoji Ikeda and, more recently, Ben Russell and Laure Prouvost. These designers support the projects of young artists studying at Le Fresnoy, while also working on their own projects.

LE FRESNOY - STUDIO NATIONAL DES ARTS CONTEMPORAINS

Echoing its commitment to and support for the intangible heritage of the cultures it represents and for contemporary creation, at the beginning of 2022 the museum set up a sound residency programme. The scheme provides an endowment of 8,000 euros and funding for the production of a sound work based on the museum's collections, issues and themes. Each year, this creative support programme welcomes an artist from one of the four continents represented in the museum's collections (Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas) to work on a unique artistic project. Following the call for projects, an international jury of leading figures from the world of sound and audiovisual creation selected Kazakh visual artist Aïda Adilbek as the winner of this second edition.

The artist has been invited to produce an original project in keeping with her artistic career, in connection with the museum's tangible and intangible collections.

Once again this year, the residency will be run in partnership with Le Fresnoy - Studio national des arts contemporains in Tourcoing, which will host the artist for two work sessions and support him in the production of his sound work. The work will be presented to the public in March 2024 and will become part of the museum's collections. Chaired by Emmanuel Kasarhérou, President of the musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac, the jury is made up of :

  • Blick Bassy (artist),
  • Anne Lafont (art historian),
  • Youmna Saba (winner of the 1st edition of the sound residency programme),
  • Éric de Visscher (musicologist and exhibition curator),
  • François Bonenfant (film and visual arts coordinator at Le Fresnoy - Studio national des arts contemporains),
  • Anne-Solène Rolland (Director of Heritage and Collections at the musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac),
  • Christine Drouin (Director of Cultural Development at the musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac),
  • Anne Behr (head of the auditorium department at the musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac)
  • and Élodie Saget (head of sound and audiovisual collections at the musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac).

This residency is part of the ‘Musée Résonnant’ project, which aims to transform the visitor's experience of sound in the museum's permanent collections. Sound, seen as a different way of apprehending works of art that goes beyond the strictly visual, allows for greater inclusivity of the public and the integration of a multiplication of approaches and a plurality of voices around the objects on display. It is at the heart of our thinking about the museum of the future.

Aware of the importance of the medium of sound in the regeneration of intangible heritage, the musée du quai Branly - Jacques Chirac wishes to give a voice to 21st-century artists whose cultural heritage unfolds in a contemporary world and engages in dialogue with it. It is thus committed to a long-term approach to supporting and promoting contemporary creation in sound art.

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Conscient de l’importance de la connaissance et de la transmission du patrimoine immatériel attaché à ses collections, le musée s’engage dans une démarche de soutien à la création sonore contemporaine et de valorisation du son sur le plateau des collections.