S+T+ARTS Afropean Intelligence 2025
At the crossroads of arts / sciences / new technologies, S+T+ARTS Afropean Intelligence aims to create spaces for reflection and experimentation through a cooperative approach between 11 cultural organizations across Africa and Europe.
S+T+ARTS Afropean Intelligence brings together 11 cultural organizations across Africa and Europe to explore the societal impacts of AI through art, science and technology. With the S+T+ARTS Prize Africa and 10 residencies in five African countries, the project supports artists in critically engaging with AI technologies, fostering intercultural dialogue and artistic innovation. Rooted in local contexts, it aims to rethink Afro-European narratives and promote inclusive futures, while preserving cultural heritage and ancestral knowledge.
The AfricaMuseum joins the programme and finances artistic residencies on the African continent, more specifically the Democratic Republic of Congo, with local actors: Académie Des Beaux-Arts and Krithika Artprojects, both based in Kinshasa. Through these intersecting voices, in a context where artificial intelligence occupies an exponential place and will inevitably shape the face of tomorrow’s societies, S+T+ARTS Afropean Intelligence aspires to question Afro-European narratives and promote a global humanist discourse while taking care to preserve cultural heritage and ancestral knowledge.
A project funded by the European Union as part of the S+T+ARTS initiative.
Consortium: GLUON (BE), CHRONIQUES (FR), Ars Electronica (AT) and AfricaMuseum (BE). In partnership with Academy of Fine ARTS Kinshasa (CD), B’sarya for Arts (EG), Fak’ugesi | Tshimologong (ZA), Gallery of Code (NG), INTERFERENCE (TN) and Krithika Art Projects (CD).
CHALLENGES
Challenge #8: The Memory Performer
The Memory Performer by Mahoutondji Kinmagbo is an artistic project that reimagines the traditional Luba memory tablet, the Lukasa, as a digital device. The project aims to preserve culture and community memory in the DRC through artificial intelligence.
His work consists of a 3D replica of a Lukasa equipped with touch sensors, connected to a game engine. By interacting with the tablet, users activate stories inspired by the Luba oral tradition. Mahoutondji wants to address contemporary urban challenges by using these stories, narrated by a 3D character. This project lies at the intersection of AI and cultural preservation. It transforms memory practices into living cultural performances, offering a new form of embodied and collaborative digital experience.
Challenge #9: TERRITOIRE TISSÉS: Kuba Royal Art between Tradition and (R)evolution
Territoires tissés (Woven Territories) by Mélisa Kayowa, is a project that traces the journeys and trajectories of various Congolese art objects since their contact with the West.
Focusing particularly on the ancestral techniques of Kuba tapestry and Ndop, sculpted portraits of various Kuba kings that trace the kingdom’s genealogy, her project uses artificial intelligence to examine the absence in the DRC of certain original art objects preserved in ethnographic museums and a few private collections in the West, as well as the relationships they now have with their source communities. AI is used in this project to help reconstruct and archive the memory of the Kuba people for present and future generations.
Challenge #10: Mobility as Memory
Mobility as Memory by Chinedum Muotto is a creative research project that reimagines how people move through the city of Kinshasa—not just as transport, but as a powerful way of remembering.
Many of the roads and structures in Kinshasa today were built during colonial times, designed to control people rather than support their freedom. Chinedum’s project looks beneath those roads to find older, hidden paths—ancestral footways, spiritual routes, and market rhythms that once shaped the city. Instead of using satellites or traffic data, he trains Artificial Intelligence on stories, songs, and sounds passed down through generations—turning AI into a tool for cultural memory. The result is a “living map”: a digital artwork that shifts and moves, revealing forgotten routes and sacred knowledge.
RESIDENCES
Académie des Beaux-Arts, Kinshasa, DRC
The Académie des Beaux-Arts of Kinshasa, ABA-KIN as an acronym, is a public institution of higher education and university in the Democratic Republic of Congo, created in 1943. It specializes in training in visual and graphic arts. The students of the Académie des Beaux-Arts of Kinshasa are trained to be able to think, design and create works of art by confronting the challenges that are ours. On the scientific level, they receive an interdisciplinary training in which the humanities and social sciences have an important place. On the artistic level, students are introduced to aesthetic values through contemporary realities, so as to master traditional, modern and contemporary techniques in art, in order to sharpen their critical sense and creative imagination.
ACADÉMIE DES BEAUX-ARTS
Av. Pierre Mulele, Ex. 24 novembre, C/Gombe, Kinshasa, Republique Démcratique du Congo
Facebook/Instagram: @academie_des_beaux_arts_de_kin
Krithika Artprojects, Kinshasa, DRC
Krithika Artprojects is an initiative based in Kinshasa that intrinsically combines art and science. It implements various aspects of contemporary art criticism, including support, monitoring, evaluation and mediation. Several perspectives are included in its agenda, among others: scientific research and publications, the organisation of exhibitions, the organisation of conferences, support for artists, the organisation of master classes, various kinds of artistic presentations, etc. Its ultimate goal is to establish a research centre in Kinshasa, a place where artists, intellectuals and theorists will begin to converge with the aim of thinking about art and reflecting on the artistic scene in Kinshasa and Congo, or even Africa as a whole, and why not the world.
KRITHIKA ARTPROJECTS
Avenue Tele 2,numéro 25B, commune de Lemba/terminus; Kinshasa, RDCongo.
Facebook/Instagram/Youtube: @krithikaartprojects
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