Kim Mupangilaï

Aug 22

Written By Admin

CODEBREAKERS

© Superhouse and Kim Mupangilaï, photo by Gabriel Flores.

Furniture designer Kim Mupangilaï wants to believe in what she makes, creating a body of work filled with personal narrative and supporting evidence. Her collection Kasai is an exploration of self-identity, interpreted through a semi-coded material language. The allegiance to teak, stone, rattan, and banana fiber is symbolic to that of her Congolese heritage on her father’s side. In the Congo, banana leaves are primarily used to wrap, cook, and store food. The designer got to know this material and stretched its functionality, drying the fiber for lamp- shades or to wrap around bench seats. By focusing on what becomes familiar, she can use it as her red thread to connect the dots of her story, which also comes from her Belgian mother and having been raised in Europe.

The shapes and details of the interlocking elements that compose her furniture are derived from currency tools common in all regions of pre-colonial Africa, where household items, knives, and jewelry used for bartering and commemorating births or marriages were often sculptural and decorated with engravings. Mupangilaï studied these objects, and sketched and abstracted their forms to create a personal alpha- bet. Her pieces thus require closer looking to reveal their complexities, including the subtle, extra functionalities they come with: a blanket hanging rack under the “armpit” of an armoire, or a small inset stone dish on the top of a side table. To live with Mupangilaï’s work means to feel their generosity.

B. 1989, Antwerp, Belgium
Lives and works in Brooklyn, NY

@pangilai