Sammy Baloji (1978, born in Lubumbashi) is a photographer, visual artist and filmmaker living between Lubumbashi and Brussels. His work explores the colonial history of the Democratic Republic of Congo under Belgian rule, and its lasting ecological impact and entanglements into the present, with a particular focus on the cultural, architectural and industrial heritage of the contested and resource-rich region of Katanga.
 
Drawing on archival records, personal testimonies and scientific analysis, he examines the enduring legacy of colonial extractivism, underscoring its human, more-than-human and environmental consequences whilst urging a reassessment of our relationship with the planet.

His recent personal exhibitions include Sammy Baloji: Echoes of History Shadows of Progress, EMΣT (2025); Sammy Baloji, Goldsmiths Centre for Contemporary Art (2024); Unextractable: Sammy Baloji invites, Kunsthalle Mainz (2023); Style Congo. Heritage & Heresy, CIVA (2023); K(C)ongo, Fragments of Interlaced Dialogues. Subversive Classifications, Palazzo Pitti, Florence (2022); K(C)ongo, Fragments of Interlaced Dialogues, Beaux-Arts de Paris (2021); Sammy Baloji, Other Tales, Lund Konsthall and Aarhus Kunsthal (2020); Congo, Fragments d’une histoire, Le Point du Jour, Cherbourg (2019); A Blueprint for Toads and Snakes, Framer Framed, Amsterdam (2018); Sven Augustijnen & Sammy Baloji, MuseumcultuurStrombeek (2018); Urban Now : City Life in Congo, with Filip de Boeck, The Power Plant, Toronto and WIELS, Brussels (2016-2017), and Hunting and Collecting, Mu. ZEE Kunstmuseum aan zee, Ostend (2014). He has recently participated in the Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennial (2024), 35th Bienal de São Paulo (2023), the Architecture Biennale of Venice (2023), the 15th Sharjah Biennial (2023), the Sydney Biennial (2020), documenta 14 (Kassel/Athens, 2017), the Lyon Biennial (2015), the Venice Biennial (2015), the Photoquai Festival at the Musée du Quai Branly (Paris, 2015).

Some of his films include The Tree of Authenticity (2025), Rumba Rules. New Genealogies with David N. Bernatchez and Kiripi Katembo Siku (2020) and Tales of the Copper Cross Garden, Episode 1 (2017).

In September 2019 he started a PhD in Artistic Research titled “Contemporary Kasala and Lukasa: towards a Reconfiguration of Identity and Geopolitics” at Sint Lucas, Antwerpen.