Biography

Georges Senga portrait

Georges Senga (b. 1983, Lubumbashi, DRC) is a photographer and visual artist based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. His work develops around history and the narratives revealed by memory, identity, and heritage.

His projects explore memory, looking for the resonances that people, their facts and their objects leave behind, and the resilience of memory in his country, DR Congo. Through photography, installation, and archival research, Senga investigates how personal and collective histories shape our understanding of the present.

Senga is part of the artistic dynamic of the city of Lubumbashi at Atelier Picha in DR Congo, the artists collective On Trade Off, and the Photo Market and Phototools workshop in Johannesburg, South Africa. His work has been exhibited internationally in institutions including Kunsthalle Mainz, WIELS Brussels, Z33 Hasselt, Museo delle Civiltà Rome, and the Kochi-Muziris Biennale.

He has been a resident at Villa Medici (Académie de France à Rome), WIELS, Jan van Eyck Academie, and Akademie Schloss Solitude, and is the recipient of the Thamie Mnyele Award (Netherlands, 2019), the CAP Prize for Contemporary African Photography (Switzerland, 2017), and the Léon the African RAM Award at the Bamako Biennale (Mali, 2015).

— Lives and works between Lubumbashi, Rotterdam, and Zagreb
Born
1983
Lubumbashi, DRC
Based
Rotterdam
The Netherlands
Also lives and works
Lubumbashi · Zagreb
"My work is mainly about the issues of identity, heritage, and history. All of these three issues are connected to an idea of memory — the memory of who we are, what we have, and where we come from."— Georges Senga