BUALA

(1962, Lausanne) is an independent writer and curator, lecturer, art critic and essayist.
He published his first novel “Cercueil et Cie” in 1985, followed by “Les Enfants de la Cité” in 1987, “Les Clandestins” and “African Gigolo” in 1989. He wrote two biographies, about James Baldwin and Léopold Sédar Senghor , several short texts, screenplays and documentaries.

He is the co-founder of Revue Noire, a magazine of contemporary African and extra-western art, and was a visiting professor at UCSD (University of San Diego, California).
He has curated many international exhibitions, being among the first to think and show the work of contemporary African artists on international stages.

He was Artistic Director of Bamako Encounters, the African Photography Biennial, from 2001 to 2007. He is the curator of “Africa Remix”, exhibited in Düsseldorf (Museum Kunst Palast), London (Hayward Gallery), Paris (Centre Pompidou), Tokyo (Mori Museum), Stockholm (Modern Museet) and Johannesburg (Johannesburg Art Gallery), from 2004 to 2007. He was co-curator of the first African Pavilion at the 52nd Venice Biennale. He was curator of the first African Art Fair, held in Johannesburg in 2008, and was Artistic Director of the Luanda Triennale (2010), Picha (Lumumbashi Biennale - 2010), LDS (Douala Triennale - 2010),
He was the Artistic Director of Edition 12 of Dak’art, of the Dakar Biennial in Senegal from 3 May to 2 June 2016 and of Edition 13 of the Dakar Biennial in May-June 2017. He was the curator of “Afriques Capitales” in La Villette (Paris) and Gare Saint-Sauveur (Lille) in France.

Invited to sit on several art and photography juries, such as the World Press Photo Contest, Njami is the Artistic Advisor of the Sindika Dokolo Foundation (Luanda) and the Artistic Director of the Donwahi Foundation (Abidjan) and member of the Scientific Council of several museums.
He currently directs “AtWork”, an itinerant and digital project with the Lettera Foundation27 , in partnership with Moleskine, as well as the Pan African Master Classes of Photography, a project he idealized with the Goethe Institut.