Lois Lumonga Brochez

In An Exercise in Acknowledgement: The Black Hermit, named after the play by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Lois Lumonga Brochez takes you on a personal search for Isaiah Pulania Lukanganyma, her Zambian grandfather whom she never knew. Inspired by the oral storytelling traditions of the Bemba and Kaonde cultures, she revives a lost archive through voice, rhythm and collective memory. Thus, she explores how to give recognition to what is lost or destroyed – and works toward a practice of recovery.

Lois Lumonga Brochez (she/her/they/them) is an actor – primarily active as a stage actor and performance artist. She was featured in Human Landscapes: Book I (2018) by Michiel Vandevelde, Het betreft liefde (2019) by Tine Van Aerschot, Vier Sterren (2022) and Bite Me (2023) by KIN, The Waves (2022) and Ensemble Piece, Exhume Buried Cries / Beauty Love / Reanimate the Dead (2023) by Khadija El Kharraz Alami, and Vier muren (2025) by Marios Bellas, among others.

After studying at the Antwerp Conservatory of Music, in 2018 they and their graduating class founded: KIN Collective – a transdisciplinary artist collective dedicated to research, community building and care through storytelling (in the broadest sense). Within this collective, they work on the HERITAGE track, which pushes the boundaries of theater to a broader, more investigative form of artistic and social engagement. During this lengthy process, the first steps toward An Exercise in Acknowledgement: The Black Hermit, which is their first own work, emerged.

Credits: Concept and play: Lois Lumonga Brochez // With support from MESTIZO ARTS PLATFORM/WIPCOOP, Kin Collective and Alix Konadu Opoku Bosompra.

Lois’ WIP will be shown Thursday, 09.10.