Mukenge/SchellhammerPartagsime 2014-20222014

Partagsime is an artistic movement that has been defined in Kinshasa since 2014 by students from the Académie des Béaux-Arts de Kinshasa and artists. The idea is based on a practice that has been common at the Académie des Béaux-Arts de Kinshasa since the 1990s. At that time, only realistic painting and sculpture were taught as part of the academic curriculum. The painting and sculpture students used to work together on the same work, due to the extremely tight deadlines for their practical exams. In order to meet the high demands of the teachers, to create realistic paintings and sculptures in a short amount of time, each candidate was supported by their colleagues. In this way, several people worked on the same painting or sculpture. In 2014, during the first Yango Biennale in Kinshasa, the artist Jean Dalemas from Belgium proposed a Duo and Trio project. As part of this, he worked with artists from Kinshasa: Dolet Malalu, Aicha Muteba, Christ Mukenge, Bouvy Enkobo, Kura Shomali, Bebson de la Rue, Shaggy Luamba, Reck Kandol, Francis Mampuya, Julie Djikey, Modi Barry. The guest artists then launched a public debate on collective work. They saw the need to define their own mode of collective operation, which had existed for a long time in Kinshasa. They saw the risk that, otherwise, collective work would be interpreted as an initiative of the Belgian artist. During public debates in which many artists and intellectuals took part, the name „Partagsime“ was defined for the collective work specific to Kinshasa. Partagisme comes from the verb „to share“ and, with the addition of „isme“, becomes a theory of the collective ownership of authors. This definition has given rise to a series of projects and exhibitions that also go beyond the media of painting and sculpture. Partagsime collective performances, installations, paintings and videos were created in particular between 2014 and 2017. But the conflicts that arose as a result of the collective work continued to escalate and weakened the movement in the following years. However, the discussions around copyright, payment and sales in the context of the projects left a lasting mark on the Kinshasa art scene. To this day, paragism sessions are still held in Kinshasa, and some artists have also put paragism on the international map.

The rules of Partagisme:
– Anyone can organise or take part in a Partagisme.
– You don’t need to have any artistic training to take part in a Partagisme.
– All the authors of a work have the same rights (financial and copyright) to the work, regardless of the form of participation.
– Partagisme is conceived as a transmedial movement