Umlilo (ZA, 1986)
Residency period: January-March 2025
From January to March 2025, I was in residency at La Becque in Switzerland, where I had the space and time to fully realize my AI collaboration project, “Non-Binary Hearts”. The project–now a 45-minute film told in musical and visual chapters–was mixed, mastered, and completed during my time there. I experimented with AI in music production and performance, including voice cloning, lyrical co-creation, and themes around digital twins, heartbreak, robots, and love.
A highlight was being featured in Bubblegum Club–we did a full-day photoshoot and interview on-site at La Becque resulting on a cover feature on the magazine. I also collaborated on former La Becque resident PRICE’s “A Repressed Repertoire (sequences)”, rehearsing and performing in Geneva at Le Trou to an incredibly warm audience.
Alongside this, I began early research for “Arbor Mundi”, a mixed-reality VR project about climate change, the body, and natural ecosystems. Inspired by the lake and surrounding nature, I experimented with new musical textures and created five tactile paintings, showcased at the Open Studio. I collected and recorded sound effects to be used in the project and experimented on new sound scores.
This residency was expansive–I pushed my practice across music, video, visual art, and performance, coming away with a more integrated and multidimensional sense of my work and direction. — Umlilo
Defining herself as an intergalactic shape-shifting kwaai diva, Umlilo is a South African innovative genre- and gender-bending multidisciplinary artist. With a practice ranging from music to fashion, 3D animation, VR, visual art, and performance, her work is rooted in the black and queer experience and tries to foster conversation and exchange with local and international communities and artists.
A graduate in Theater and Media Studies from Rhodes University, she is the founder of Future Kwaai Records and co-founder of the LeGrand Queer Arts Festival and Kwaai Boutique in Johannesburg, where she lives and works. Engaged in collaborative initiatives, she is also a part of the Finsterbusch collective in Switzerland and Fakugezi Animation in Johannesburg.
Umlilo, La Becque, 2025, photo Matthieu Croizier
Umlilo, ‘Love Songs’ and ‘Sad Robot’, 2025, video clips
Interview for Bubblegum Club, 2025
PRICE, ‘A Repressed Repertoire (sequences)’, Le Trou, Geneva, 2025, photo Barnabé Masson