Kuamen in Conversation with Christine Eyene

Please join us on Sunday 12 Oct, 2pm-4pm, at Yamamoto Keiko Rochaix for a conversation between poet, rapper, and multidisciplinary artist Kuamen and curator Christine Eyene.

Hosted as part of “Kuamen: Creep to the mic like a phantom”, curated by Eyene, the conversation will introduce the dialogue that has led to the exhibition’s theme and selection of works.

Beyond visual practice, it will explore the diverse genres of music, notably hip-hop, that accompany both the artist and curator’s respective thinking, making, and writing, across identity formation, assertion, and social positioning.

Likewise, the artist and curator will share poems and excerpts of texts informing some of the works in the exhibition, their interpretation, and their inscription within Afro-European experiences — specifically in the French context —, as well as Afro-Diasporic resonances in Britain and beyond.

Finally, the conversation will situate Kuamen’s work within various art historical geographies, chronologies, and genres: from the heritage of African masks to the Black aesthetics of Barkley Hendricks, via Caravaggio.

The event is a part of the East End Day for Frieze London 2025.

Kuamen

Kuamen is a poet, rapper, and self-taught multidisciplinary artist whose practice includes drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, video, installation, and performance. Born in London to a Congolese father and a Mauritian mother, he lives in Aulnay-sous-Bois (a Paris suburb) and grew up in an estate that is home to a large community of African residents and is deeply stigmatised by urban violence and unemployment.

The artist's origins and place of residence have forced him to confront social phenomena such as racism, poverty, segregation, and overconsumption from a very early age. Inspired by American hip-hop culture, which he saw as a reflection of his own experience, he began writing poetry through politically engaged music. After obtaining an MBA in international marketing and working for several years in that field, he decided to devote himself entirely to his artistic career.

As a rapper he has collaborated with French Senegalese rapper Sefyu including on the cult underground rap hit 'La Vie Qui Va Avec' (2006) and 'Attitude' (2008). His conceptual album 'cultureafropéenne#' (2022) explores the complex identity of the African diaspora in a western context, blending hip hop, poetry, and visual art.

As a visual artist, Kuamen has mostly exhibited between France and Los Angeles. His stone sculpture 'Ex Poto' (2023), created as part of Fonds de dotation Verrecchia’s bursary (Bourse Matière 2022) was inaugurated this summer in Bondy (France). Other collaborations include 'I Have Also Seen' (2025), a performance presented in the exhibition “What the Mountain Has Seen” curated by Christine Eyene at ERL Gallery (Liverpool), and “Drawing Together 201 Exquisite Corpses” curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist at Museum im Bellpark, Kriens, Switzerland, (2022).

Kuamen’s practice and concern for the accessibility of art for all also manifests through workshops with local communities, young people, and special needs participants with whom he develops social sculptures.

Christine Eyene

Christine Eyene is an art historian and curator with a PhD in Art History from Birkbeck, University of London. She is Senior Lecturer in Contemporary Art and Co-Director of Exhibition Research Lab at Liverpool John Moores University, and Research Curator at Tate Liverpool. At LJMU, she teaches Exhibition Histories and curatorial practices from an African and Diasporic perspective.

From 2012 to 2022, she worked with Professor Lubaina Himid CBE RA on Making Histories Visible, an interdisciplinary visual arts research project then based at the University of Central Lancashire.

Her recent exhibitions include “What the Mountain Has Seen”, ERL Gallery, Liverpool (until 31 Oct), featuring Shiraz Bayjoo, Joy Gregory and Freya Tewelde among other artists; “The Plant the Stowed Away”, Tate Liverpool + RIBA North, Liverpool (Feb-May 2025); “George Hallett: Home and Exile”, Galerie Clémentine de la Féronnière, Paris. She was curator of Landskrona Foto Festival 2024’s Konsthall exhibition in Landskrona, Sweden, and “Seeds and Souls”, Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, Denmark (2023-24).

Her latest essay ‘Lolodorf: Memories of a land’ is soon to be published in Ibou Coulibaly Diop, Franck Hermann Ekra and Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung (eds.), Deberlinization: Refabulating the World, A Theory of Praxis. Zurich: Diaphanes, 2025. Recently published essays include ‘Where an artist finds freedom’ in Alicia Knock (ed.), “Paris Noir: Artistic circulations and anti-colonial resistance”, 1950 – 2000. Paris: Centre Pompidou, 2025.