Please join us for a public event on linguistic forms that express – partially – inexorable experience. Sambi Nzeba will present a short film, discuss the role of slam poetry in her work, and then address the broader implications of writing in the context of artistic practice.
Followed by a Q&A from the audience. Moderated by Natasha Marie Llorens and Kajsa Dahlberg.
“My writing bears traces of the inexorable, inevitable fragmentation of exile, of impossible belonging, of broken geolocation. Between Kinshasa and Brussels, there is Marseille, Gratz, Lisbon and all the others. … To write is to be here and nowhere. Elsewhere and everywhere. Elsewhere it’s my home.
Born in Belgium, Joëlle Sambi Nzeba spent part of her childhood in Kinshasa before returning to Brussels where she now lives and works. Alongside her professional activities which are carried out within the context of a feminist movement, she is a writer. She graduated from the Université Libre de Bruxelles with a degree in information and communication (journalism) and is the author of several prize-winning works of fiction (Je ne sais pas rêver, 2002 and Le monde est gueule de chèvre, 2007). Through her activism (Merhaba, Festival Massimadi Bruxelles) and writing, Joëlle Sambi Nzeba tries to question situations of powerlessness. She gets people talking about identity, the norm and belonging.