Massa Lemu is a Malawian artist and writer whose multi-disciplinary practice features text, performance and installations. Lemu is currently assistant professor of sculpture in the Department of Sculpture and Extended Media at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. His newest art installation is entitled: He Who Gave Us Teeth Should Give You Art to See: A Patois Bourgeois P.arty Manifesto

The installation’s title alludes to the idea of the postcolonial bourgeoisie as a hybrid product of Western and African values. The installation is comprised of the requisite, preposterous, and necessary accouterments of the political promotional performance. Grandiose and absurd sculptural elements critique the vulnerable persona of the political elite. As an activity of decolonization, Lemu both ratifies and undermines the already unstable election process. He Who Gave Us Teeth Should Give You Art to See: A Patois Bourgeois P.arty Manifesto is a spectacle of entanglement! Lemu is taking part of the excess and derision that is the postcolonial election –he is joining the party in Malawi from afar.