In the late 1950s a youth subculture called ‘Le Billisme’, inspired by Western movies, emerged in Leopoldville (Actual Kinshasa, Dem. Rep. of Congo). Theatres were located in the black neighbourhoods of a city that was still experiencing severe racial discrimination. Buffalo Bill (from which the French expression ‘Le Billisme’ was derived) was an actor who became the idol of many young Congolese, and set the rules for male fashion especially, although young Congolese women could also be seen in the street, parading in jeans, with a scarf around the neck and sometimes even a lasso. Therefore, in this ‘wearable sculpture’ called Billisme Ya Sika (2018) Mbikayi questions the way popular culture can be a tool of resistance against socio political crisis in our society, in this case, technological and environmental crisis. 

Mbikayi draws from both Western and African fashion, using the body as a means of expression to comment on African realities, but focusing on the transformation and reinvention of the human body – my body – within the digitalized world. The human body is one of the few sites where Kinshasa may transcend the crude functionality of life perceived as mere survival. But it is also the place where experiences, as well as personal and collective fantasies, meet and merge.