David Shongo

David Shongo is a Congolese composer and visual artist, internationally recognized for his incisive work in photography, sound art, experimental video, and multimedia installations, presented notably at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), the Venice Biennale, Ars Electronica, the Bangkok Biennale, and the MAXXI Museum in Rome.

He received the Grand Prix State of Art(ist) at Ars Electronica in 2025. Between 2019 and 2023, he was a research artist at the Swiss National Science Foundation. He is the founder and artistic director of the Pianos de Kinshasa Festival.

David Shongo’s work explores the interactions between sound and image, bringing to light the movements, silences, and poetic resonances that emerge from their encounter. His practice engages contemporary technologies, particularly through research into complex systems of sound spatialization and visual immersion. His research examines the conditions through which the memory of his country of origin, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is formed, and interrogates its entanglements with historical and contemporary dynamics of the global economy.