Sandra Mujinga at Oslo Kunstforening

Artist: Sandra Mujinga

Exhibition title: Real Friends

Venue: Oslo Kunstforening, Oslo, Norway

Date: October 14 – November 13, 2016

Photography: Christina Leithe Hansen, all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Oslo Kunstforening

Oslo Kunstforening is pleased to present new works by Sandra Mujinga.

The self-image, which we constantly shape and redefine, has been a reoccurring theme for Mujinga. The new series of video and photographic works in «Real Friends», addresses the performative aspect of self-representation, in addition to the isolation it can inspire.

As previously seen, the artist uses material gathered from her own traveling and combines it with blue screen; using mobile-apps and her iPhone in addition to filming with a HD camera. This time around it is the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mujinga’s own place of birth, that becomes focal.

Mujinga herself maintains a sense of ambivalence in regards to how she wishes to exist in digital media. She has no intention of documenting a certain «truth». Instead, her works characterize a continuous shift between different ways of seeing. The focus is placed upon the loss that arises in the interplay between the physical and digital realities between which we find ourselves moving.

Today we have the opportunity to shield ourselves from people who disagree with us on social media by simply pressing «unfollow». This digital self-representation with its accompanied normalisation of instant emotions, «instant feels», is provoked through «emojis» and «memes» and lead to a loss of the self. This does not necessarily represent a merely dystopian future. It might in fact make room for a new kind of self. A discussion surrounding what constitutes the perception of the human becomes relevant.

Sandra Mujinga (b. 1989) graduated from Malmö Art Academy in 2015. She lives and works in Malmö, Sweden. In the spring of 2016 she was awarded one of Swedens largest art grants, Fredrik Roos-stipendet, which simultaneously secured her an exhibition spot at Moderna Museet in Malmö.

Her work Face Time/Facetime Real Time/Realtime, with which she recieved Sparebankstiftelsen DNBs grant at Oslo Kunstforening in 2013, is currently included in the group exhibition «Missed Connections» at the Julia Stoscheck Collection in Düsseldorf.

Sandra Mujingas last solo presentation in Norway took place at Podium in 2012. Previously she has also shown her work at Kunsthall Oslo (2014) and at Oslo Kunstforening (2012, 2013).

Oslo Kunstforening is supported by Arts Council Norway and the City of Oslo. Sandra Mujinga has received support from Mediaverkstaden Skåne, Billedkunstnernes Vederlagsfond and Arts Council Norway.

A conversation between Sandra Mujinga and artist/curator Hannah Heilmann will take place on November 9. Heilmann (MA Art History, University of Copenhagen) is the Co-director of TOVES.