Andrew Mulenga is a freelance arts journalist whose main focus is documenting the contemporary art scene of his home country Zambia. He began his career as a graphic designer and worked his way to an appointment as Deputy Editor of the Education Post while establishing himself as the publication’s resident art critic. He is the 2012 CNN Multi-choice African Journalist of the year for Art & Culture for the stories ‘In Mali, The Kora is no one-night stand, it requires commitment and ‘Libanga’ system: DRC’s phenomenon of commercialised praise-singing. In 2014 he received the Media Institute of Southern Africa’s special award for arts journalism. Possessing no undergraduate credentials, he completed an MA Art History at Rhodes University as an ad eundem gradum entrant on an Andrew Mellon scholarship (2014–-2015).

He is currently on an Art History and Visual Culture Scholarship for a PhD as part of the NRF SARChI Chair research initiative Geopolitics and the Arts of Africa, at the same university. His Master’s thesis Contemporary Zambian Art, Conceptualism and the ‘Global’ Art World, sheds light on Zambia and makes a contribution to the visual arts discourse of the continent. Apart from his weekly column in The Post Newspaper over a 12-year period, he has contributed to the Bulletin & Record Magazine, Partners Guide, Nkwazi inflight magazine and Art Dubai. Since 2012 his newspaper articles have been regularly adapted in the modules of the Zambian Open University’s art curriculum where he also guest lectures.

Through his writing as an emerging art historian his current ambition is to encourage Zambian artists to question the sociopolitical, cultural, historical, moral and aesthetic implications of the work they produce. In 2016 he wrote the exhibition catalogue essays for Visual Voices (German embassy) and Donation (Netherlands embassy) in Lusaka;, his involvement in these two exhibitions has encouraged him to consider curatorial prospects in the near future. The same year he contributed a book chapter entitled “Germinating in the cracks: the identity of contemporary Zambian art” in the book Zambia – 72 peoples form a state – insights in a post-colonial society,published by the University of Wuppertal in Germany. From 2011 to 2014 Mulenga also served as interim chairman, Arterial Network (Zambia), a continental network of artists and cultural activists. Mulenga sees himself as “being in the academy but not of it” (De Veaux 2016). You can read his blog 

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Last Modified: Mon, 14 Aug 2017 11:21:56 SAST