Picha association

The Picha association is an initiative of artists operating independently from Lubumbashi that supports and promotes artistic creation in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Picha gives visibility to contemporary art in Lubumbashi by providing a venue for exhibitions, meetings, artist residencies, training workshops and artistic accompaniment. Picha intends to promote artistic creation by taking the urban space as a stage and the image as a medium. Picha wants to bring an artistic reflection, both endogenous and speaking to the world, on the city of Lubumbashi, its history and its environment today. In addition to the organization of the Lubumbashi Biennale, the association has to its credit the realization of several exhibitions, video and photo workshops, training programs and artists' residencies, conducted with the aim of offering national and international visibility to local artists and artistic initiatives. To
fulfill its mission, Picha has created the following platforms:

• The Lubumbashi Biennale, founded in 2008 as "Rencontres Picha", has become one of the most experimental and dynamic artistic events on the African continent, providing a platform for local and international artists and cultural actors to present their work and meet.
• Atelier Picha is a permanent training program dedicated to the production and dissemination of participatory artistic and cultural projects. Atelier Picha allows the networking of a new generation of Congolese artists and cultural producers with other national and international cultural actors.The program offers a period of research and production and professional guidance to young people in the conceptualization of their project. Since 2017, Picha has enabled a dozen emerging artists from around the country to participate in the workshops. In 2019 and 2020, Atelier Picha is collaborating with Picha's partner institutions, such as Sharjah Art Foundation (Sharjah), Market Photo Workshop (Johannesburg), Gasworks (London), Art Hub Asia (Shanghai), Universidad Distrital de Colombia (Bogota), Raw Material Company (Dakar). The artistic director is Lucrezia Cippitelli.
• The Picha residency program, initiated in 2014, invites artists from the African continent and abroad for a period of research and production in Lubumbashi. In 2021, Picha had the pleasure of hosting/receiving artists Francis Alÿs and Nicole Rafiki.
• MAKWACHA, Picha's project to set up a silk-screen printing workshop in Lubumbashi and Makwacha aims to revisit and valorize, through textile silk-screening, the traditional practice of mural painting existing in various regions of Congo and the various local textile creations (such as Kuba velvet), while integrating them into a thoughtful artistic and community approach. The period of the last Lubumbashi Biennale, from October 24 to November 24, 2019, gave visibility to the Makwacha project through numerous visits by participants and speakers from around the world. The completion of the construction work allowed the arrival and installation of artists to work and interact with the women of the community.