EMΣT is pleased to present the first solo exhibition in Greece of the internationally acclaimed artist Sammy Baloji.
For more than two decades, Baloji has been exploring the complex interplay of cultural identity, colonial history, and industrial exploitation within his homeland, the Democratic Republic of Congo. His work is an ongoing research on the cultural, architectural and industrial heritage of the contested and resource-rich region of Katanga (in the South East of the country), as well as critically examining the impact of Belgian colonisation.
Baloji’s solo exhibition at EMΣΤ entitled Echoes of History, Shadows of Progress brings together installations, video works, and photographic series from the past twelve years of the artist’s practice, including a new commission. The exhibition highlights Baloji’s artistic research on the history, present-day reality and contradictions inherent in the formation of Congo. The works explore interactions between the pre-colonial Kongo empire and Europe, as well as the effects that the violent exploitation – of humans and resources – suffered by his country under Belgian colonial rule had on both nature and culture. Finally, it examines Katanga’s current forms of corporate resource extraction and the ecological destruction they cause.
The new commission, entitled The Meandering (2025), is a site-specific installation that builds on Baloji’s research into the exchanges between the Kingdom of Kongo (1390-1914) and Europe, as well as the colonial European systems of classification and knowledge production that followed. The work challenges Eurocentric hierarchies in art history and looks at how Western Europe embraced Greco-Roman antiquity, from the Renaissance onwards, to establish continuity with a supposedly golden past. In contrast, artefacts from colonial regions, such as the Kongo Kingdom, were excluded from this narrative as they did not serve this function of symbolic legitimation. Traces of this act of appropriation can also be recognised in the way classicists and archaeologists in Greece have re-interpreted ancient and modern African presence in the region, reinforcing colonial narratives.The title of the exhibition, Echoes of History, Shadows of Progress, points to the haunting, lingering presence of colonial legacies, but also the continuation of economic exploitation in contemporary Congo. In his work, Baloji masterfully casts a critical eye on contemporary societies, drawing attention to the fact that cultural clichés continue to shape collective memories.
Born in 1978 in Lubumbashi, DR Congo, Baloji lives and works between Lubumbashi and Brussels. Baloji’s work is also included in the major group exhibition Why Look at Animals? A Case for the Rights of Non-Human Lives, shown at EMΣΤ between 15 May 2025 and 15 February 2026.
Curated by iOLi Tzanetaki
BIOGRAPHY
Sammy Baloji (b. 1978, Lubumbashi, DR Congo) lives and works between Lubumbashi and Brussels. Since September 2019 he has been working on his PhD artistic research project “Contemporary Kasala and Lukasa: towards a Reconfiguration of Identity and Geopolitics” at Sint Lucas Antwerpen. A Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, he has received numerous fellowships, awards and distinctions, notably at the African Photography Encounters of Bamako and the Dakar Biennale, and was a laureate of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative. In 2019-2020, he was a resident of the French Academy of Rome – Villa Medici.
Since 2018, he teaches at the Sommerakademie in Salzburg. Sammy Baloji co-founded in 2008 the Rencontres Picha/Biennale de Lubumbashi.
Solo exhibitions (selection): K(C)ongo, Fragments of Interlaced Dialogues, Palazzo Pitti, Florence (2022) and Beaux-Arts de Paris (2021); Sammy Baloji, Other Tales, Lund Konsthall and Aarhus Kunsthal (2020); Congo, Fragments d’une histoire, Le Point du Jour, Cherbourg (2019); A Blueprint for Toads and Snakes, Framer Framed, Amsterdam (2018); Sven Augustijnen & Sammy Baloji, Museumcultuur Strombeek (2018); Urban Now: City Life in Congo, Sammy Baloji and Filip de Boeck, The Power Plant, Toronto and WIELS, Brussels (2016–2017), and Hunting and Collecting, Mu.ZEE Kunstmuseum in Ostend (2014).
He has recently participated in the 35th Bienal de São Paulo (2023), the Architecture Biennale of Venice (2023), the 15th Sharjah Biennial (2023), Sydney Biennial (2020), documenta 14 (Kassel/Athens, 2017), the Lyon Biennial (2015), the Venice Biennale (2015), the Photoquai Festival at the Musée du Quai Branly (Paris, 2015). In 2023, he ranked 11th in the Power 100, the annual list of the “most influential people in art” by the British magazine Art Review. His first solo exhibition at Imane Farès, 802. That is where, as you heard, the elephant danced the malinga. The place where they now grow flowers (2016) is now part of the collection of Tate, London.
PRESS MATERIAL
EXHIBITION CREDITS
Artistic Direction: Katerina Gregos
Administrative-Financial Direction: Athina Ioannou
Curator: Ioli Tzanetaki
Twenty Nine Studio & Production, team members: Sammy Baloji and Rosa Spaliviero, Juliette Hourçourigaray, Marek Szponik, Henriette Gillerot and Minne De Meyer Engelbeen
Exhibition Design: Thalia Melissa
Lighting: Sakis Birbilis
Graphic Design: Eleni Spyridaki
Registrar: Maria Drakou
Conservator: Fotini Alexopoulou
Art handling & Transport: construcktivist ΕΕ Fine Art Packing & Transport
Audiovisual Installation: Makis Faros, Antonis Gkatzougiannis
Deputy Director of Technical Services (ΕΜΣΤ): Iro Nikolakea
Technical Support (ΕΜΣΤ): Vangelis Filippas, Emilios Petrikis, Grigoris Sampanis
Insurance: Karavias Underwriting Agency S.A.
Constructions: Labadarios Stelios and Antonopoulos Manos
Special metal construction: Konstantinos Paschalidis
Plants: Gryllis Water Lillies
Translations: Vassilis Douvitsas, Maria Skamagka
Proof reading: Anny Malama
Subtitles: Videopress
Wall Text Production: Mathilde Skyloyannis
Prints: NEXT S.A.
Hospitality: Vicki Triantafylloudi
Communication (ΕΜΣΤ): Ioakeim Theodoridis, Marigo Siakka, Iliana Siarga (Graphics)
Communication Consultant: Maria Tsolaki
Social Media: Sergio Zalmas
Special Thanks: Imane Farès (Paris), Frédéric de Goldschmidt, KANAL Foundation (Brussels)
SPONSORS
