Artist
Djofray Makumbu is a British Congolese artist born and based in East London. He often works with friends and family when making his work which draws on personal experiences and those of the people close to him. Recent works have focused on the shame and stigma of mental health difficulties, the pressures and violence of inner-city life from the perspective of young people, and the joy of music and dancing. Djofray loves to mix up different techniques, combining stop motion animation, video footage, and hand drawn and painted elements in moving image form which are sometimes presented alongside live performances involving dance or scripted scenes. Each element in the work is carefully self-made, from hand-built sets and hand stitched garments for Claymation characters to soundtracks that are developed closely with his brother. In 2020, Djofray won a Goldsmiths Exhibitions Hub commission, in partnership with the London Community Video Archive, to make Hello Mr Officer, a moving image work that sees young Black men from across London share their experiences of being harassed by the police. The work uses stop motion, watercolour and rotoscope alongside archive material from The People’s Account (1987) by Ceddo Film Collective held in the LCVA archive. Recent solo shows include Brixton Library, London in 2019. Djofray graduated from the BA Fine Art programme at Goldsmiths in 2018 and was awarded the Alumno/SPACE Studio Bursary as a result of his degree show exhibition.