Michèle Magema, born in 1977, is a Congoles-French performer, video artist and photographer. She emigrated to France as a child and in her work she addresses colonial pasts and questions definitions of identity based on cultural and national attributions.
In 2002 she received her MA in fine arts from l’Ecole Nationale Supérieure d’Arts de Cergy. In addition to being a resident artist at Cité Internationale des Arts, she has participated in the Africa Remix Exhibition, Dakar Biennal curated by Simon, Njami, SUD ( Salon Urbain de Douala).Magema has shown her work in 2007 at the Global Feminism exhibition, organised by Elizabeth A. Sackler in the Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum, among other places. One of her most well-known works is ‘Oyé Oyé’, (2004) a two‐channel video installation, in which Magema is shown marching in place on the left, while on the right historic footage of Zaire’s Mobutu Sese Seko overseeing parades of Congolese cultural pride.
A key focus, for her, is articulating a permament exhange between individual stories, collective memorie and History.