Led by Lubumbashi-based artist and researcher Feza Kayungu Ramazani, workshop participants will learn from the recycling and upcycling methods of children who make their own toys using leftover materials such as electrical copper wire.  In Lubumbashi and neighboring towns in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), scraps of electrical copper wire can be found around mining dumps and neighborhoods close to factories.  Copper is a product of metal ore deposits concentrated and mined in Central Africa, in a region extending between northern Zambia and southernmost DRC also known as the Copperbelt.  Workshop participants will learn how to make toys and figures from copper wire, twisting and morphing wires into frames, which are then covered with knitting yarn and finally dressed in liputa (a Congolese textile garment worn mostly by women).  Without a toy industry in the DRC, children grow up creating their own characters, cars, and other imaginative objects, demonstrating ingenuity through sustainability.

This workshop first started as part of the École du soir: Archives sonores de la littérature noire (Sound Archives of Black Literature) in 2022.  The second series of workshops were held in Lubumbashi along with children from The Centre d’Eveil de la Femme orphanage where toys were created.

In English & Chinese. 

Free and open to the public.

Space is limited. Registration is required. To register, please click the “Register” button on the left of this page or scan the QR code below. Please register by 17:00 on 18 April. 

In conjunction with École du soir, an exhibition by Christian Nyampeta.

The exhibition École du soir and related events are presented as the fourth season of the ICA’s second artistic research program, Another Knowledge Is Possible (2021-24), exploring neglected and repressed ways of knowing and the complex politics of knowledge decolonization.