Standing inside the solo exhibition of Jean Katambayi Mukendi, late winter sunlight spills through the tall windows on the third floor of KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin. The space is bright and expansive, its white walls broken by diagrams, wires, and the skeletal outlines of improvised machines. A handful of journalists drift slowly throughout the building, one pausing in front of a large wall work stretching across the far western corner of the room.
They ask if they can take a photograph of the artist beside his work. Mukendi, whose presence is gentle and quietly attentive, agrees without hesitation. He steps forward and positions himself next to one of the intricate mechanisms he has assembled from wires, bicycle wheels, and salvaged electronics.
The photographer raises the phone’s camera. Mukendi looks directly into the lens, steady and composed. A familiar request: could he smile?
Mukendi pauses for a moment before gently refusing. He explains, simply, that he cannot smile for the camera while there is still conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The remark is not confrontational, nor dramatic, just matter-of-fact, and the effect is quietly disarming. Standing among the delicate diagrams of electrical systems, speculative machines, and fragile circuits that fill the room, it becomes difficult to see the works as merely aesthetic propositions or inventive constructions. They emerge instead from a material and political landscape that extends far beyond the walls of KW, or of our relatively sheltered existence miles away from the line of fire.
The smartphone in your pocket, or the laptop you’re using to read this, likely contains copper mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The country sits on part of the vast Central African Copperbelt, one of the richest mineral regions in the world, and is among the leading producers of copper and cobalt — metals essential for electrical wiring, batteries, and renewable energy technologies. The very device delivering this text connects you directly to the country’s mineral wealth.
The enormous value of these resources has also contributed to decades of political struggle and instability. Control over mineral-rich territory has attracted powerful international mining interests as well as armed groups, particularly in the eastern part of the country. The region was profoundly destabilised after the Rwandan Genocide in 1994, which helped trigger a series of wars including the devastating Second Congo War.
Although the war formally ended in 2003, numerous militias remain active in parts of eastern Congo, and competition over land, minerals, and political power continues to fuel cycles of violence and displacement. Mukendi’s work engages directly with the infrastructures that link Central African mineral extraction to global systems of energy and technology. Drawing on research into mining sites and power generation, his practice reflects on the structural inequalities embedded in the circulation of resources and electricity.
Mukendi was invited by KW to spend six weeks living and working in Berlin in the winter of 2025. During the residency, he developed new works on site for the exhibition using locally available materials, including items drawn from the institution’s storage. The residency forms part of a new initiative focussed on local production and artistic process, inviting artists to live and work on site while developing site-specific exhibitions.
We caught up with the artist at his opening to speak about his residency, his work, and his role as an artist.
We’re standing quite high up, with a lot of light coming into the space. How does this setting affect the work?
It’s very bright up here, and that works well with the idea of the airplane — being so high. When you look through the sculptures, you see the tops of the buildings. It really changes the work.
The central sculpture looks like an airplane, but also like something more fragmented. How do you think about it?
It’s an airplane, basically, but made by mixing different engines. For me, it’s about recycling—how you can transform one engine into another, and push that as far as possible. It’s not just one function. I’m interested in how a machine can change its role.
So the work is also about the life cycle of machines?
Yes. I’m thinking about military conflict today. After a conflict, the engines are just abandoned. But they could be recycled very quickly — used again, even for agriculture. So I’m thinking about how to convert one system into another. But I’m not making an apology for conflict, obviously.
You’re connecting machinery, ecology, and conflict at the same time. Where does that come from?
Today we are talking about drones, electronics, space technologies. These things are all connected to conflict. As an African artist, I want to contribute something to that discussion. I want to enter that conversation from my position.
If this airplane could move, where would it be going?
If I imagine it, it comes from Africa to here — to the West — to contribute something. It’s storytelling about conflict.
How can artists play a role in international conflict?
It’s important to have some mediators. We are playing as mediators between Africa and the West. It’s important, because you have local issues and international issues, and they are always connected. You can find international problems inside local situations. So for me, it’s important to come from local realities and to act as a mediator. The artist’s job is to be a mediator — between different contexts.
Your process seems structured but also open to improvisation. How do you approach making a work like this?
I always have a general plan. But then there are different stages. I adapt to the place, to the materials I find. Here, I collected things from around the city — bicycles, metal. The bicycle was a starting point, because in Europe now everyone goes back to bicycles, maybe for ecological reasons. I’m not sure if it’s really true.
Some people compare your use of found objects to Marcel Duchamp. Is that something you think about?
People have compared me to Marcel Duchamp for a long time. But that’s not why I use these materials—it’s more by chance. I didn’t really study his work deeply. For me, it’s more about what I find and how I can transform it.
There’s also a mechanical and electrical logic in your work. Does that come from your background?
Yes — my father was an electrician, and I learned from him. I also learned mathematics. I use geometry, electricity — these things become tools for me. I use them as material to think about the world.
So this knowledge is something that’s passed down?
Yes, but in different ways. In my family, many people work with mechanics or electricity. I use that knowledge differently — I use it as an artist, to project ideas.
And now your son’s work is also part of the exhibition. How does that relate?
My son was like my satellite — he was following me. He was very young, but he took inspiration from what I was doing and developed his own work. Nowadays he keeps it mostly private — it’s his own territory. But these pieces he let me have. Alongside the sculptures, there are drawings that look almost like schematics.
What role do they play?
I made these drawings before coming [to Berlin] and brought them with me to keep the idea in mind the whole time. It’s a way to connect to the work. Some are directly related to the sculptures. In these drawings, you refer to existing electronic models.
Why is that important for you?
Electronics are deeply part of current conflicts. I was thinking about industrial electronic companies like NVIDIA, and about artificial intelligence. I was respelling and analysing NVIDIA and inside NVIDIA got Divina. Divina is like related to God. It reflects how I’m worried about mixing human and artificial components, and the dangers of that for human beings.
The hand appears as an important motif in your work. What does it represent?
The hand can help, but it can also hurt. It can give, or it can take. The right could give and the left could steal, you know? The hand could bless and beat, too. And I’m happy to put my own hand because it’s like the hand is blessing with electricity. For me, it’s going back to the idea of mixing the natural and the artificial — the human component and technology.
Jean Katambayi Mukendi, RATIO
21.02.–10.05.26
KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Auguststraße 69
10117 Berlin
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