Ange Swana

Ange is a national of DR Congo. She was born in 1987, in Giseni, Rwanda, where her father hold a diplomatic posting. She then spent her childhood between Rwanda and Goma, the capital of North Kivu in eastern DRC. This region has been a zone of tension for decades and has witnessed geo-political, socio-cultural and economic conflicts, involving in particular the exploitation of rare minerals such as Coltan (used for the manufacture of electronic and high-tech goods - cellphones, computers and tablets, etc.). This conflict culminated in the civil war that raged in Rwanda from 1992 to 1994 - one of the deadliest in the late 20th century Hutus and Tutsis opposed on the question of the authenticity of their origins which lead to the massacre of more than 600,000 people. Ange and her family then left to resettle in Kinshasa, leaving behind a dark and chaotic landscape of what had been their nest of birth. In Kinshasa, Ange pursued her primary and secondary education at Lycée Sainte Germaine, with a major in Latin literature and philosophy. As she had been passionate about drawing from her youngest age, and by the arts in general, she then enrolled in Plastic Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts of Kinshasa, where she completed a five-year program (Licence).