Group Tutorial, Artist-Talk & Open Studio with Bruno Milambo

Bruno Milambo, the first artist in our Zambia-based artist-in-residence cohort at the Lusaka Contemporary Art Centre, shared his Artistic Practice on Thursday, October 31, 2024. His residency, which ran from October 15 to October 31, 2024, showcased his exploration of themes related to identity and creativity.

Milambo has been practicing art for a decade now. His journey began in 2014 at the University of Namibia, where he had training in a plethora of art practices and mediums, including Photography, Ceramics, Printmaking, Installations, Painting, and Theatre. Conceptual Art is however a practice he tends to favour, as it allows him the opportunity to explore, experiment and interpret ideologies of a Deity, the Cosmos, the Subconscious, and Identity of mankind in his own language. Whilst incorporating the aforementioned mediums and practices, stretching their rudimentary influence on material culture has produced different dialects of translation and allowed for more interpretative approach than a literal based appearance of the aesthetic of his work. He has participated in several group exhibitions in Namibia and Zambia, as well as art competitions, and some of his works have been collected privately in Zambia and abroad, including Ghana and the UK.

Bruno believes that Art is Creation,’ and therefore it should be methodical, but yet still sporadic and autonomous enough to provoke thought, evoke emotion, and elicit untainted reactions from the viewer, as well as the artist during the process from the inception to the foremost interactive state. His topics of expression often revolve around exploring individual identity in terms of creation, humanity and universal civilizations over time. It is his belief that lot of our development as a species is driven by the esoteric and intuitive value of a woman and her divine relationship with creation, children, man, and her environment. Therefore, the female is a cornerstone in his conceptualization and depictions throughout his works, aided by the Idea that before we belong to any ethnic background, we are products of a deity, and a conceptual feature of life as a spectrum. We are ‘Human Beings’ before we are “People”, in tandem with the waters of the universe, and basic sovereignty of the planet, including earth, wind, and fire.