On the Road: Moridja Kitenge Banza

For many years the McMichael team has been rooting for one of our favourites, the Congolese‑born, Montreal‑based artist Moridja Kitenge Banza. It was a great pleasure, then, to deepen our relationship with him in 2023, when we presented his exhibition Topographies and acquired a major work from the Chiromancies series, Chiromancie #14 n°2, 2023. 

After nearly fifteen years in Canada, forging new and meaningful relationships here, Banza has been busy reactivating his global network. Over the past year or so he has travelled extensively to destinations including New York, Sharjah, Paris, London, and Cape Town, connecting with institutions, curators, and collaborators worldwide. These travels have yielded meaningful results: for example, it was at a small gathering in London in October 2025, while Banza was exhibiting at the 1‑54 Contemporary African Art Fair that an idea—the first‑ever Congolese pavilion at the Venice Biennale—met the means to execute it. Despite a remarkably short runway, the inaugural Congo Pavilion will open at this year’s Biennale, with Banza in attendance.  

This milestone comes after an especially fruitful few months for the artist. These include the launch of his first monograph, titled A Thousand Ways to Talk About It, a beautiful bilingual volume published by PHI Foundation for Contemporary Art, Montreal, and Figure1, Vancouver. At the launch party for the book, which took place at PHI in April to coincide with the Plural art fair, the McMichael was pleased to contribute the premiere screening of a short film we produced about Banza, the latest in our series about artists directed by the Canadian filmmaker David Hartman. In his studio, Banza discusses how his own experiences and the histories of colonialism in both the Congo and Canada inform the ways in which he maps out physical and psychic spaces in his work. 

This spring also marked the opening of an exhibition of Banza’s latest work, a new series of Chiromancies presented at Galerie Hugues Charbonneau in Montreal under the title The Memory of Seasons. On the longer horizon and farther afield, the Almas Art Foundation will be presenting his work in London this September. 

Banza has had many great successes over the past few years, all richly deserved. We will be watching with admiration what the future will bring for this outstanding artist.