Muyon Danyela Mafulu is a South African-born curator and researcher of Congolese and Namibian heritage. Rooted in Congolese heritage, her curatorial practice seeks to amplify Congolese artistic voices, while creating a space that connects local practices within the African diaspora and the global audience.

She is completing her Master’s in Art History, where her research explored the tension between preservation and innovation in Congolese art. Focusing on Popular Painting in the DRC, studied through the lens of memory, ancestral lineages and contemporary art. Through this research, her understanding of how Congolese artists interlace personal, communal and spiritual narratives, creating living archives that carry both resilience and the promise of renewal.  Muyon’s curatorial vision and approach are centred around African artists from underrepresented African regions (West and Central Africa), with a commitment to resisting reductive, Eurocentric frameworks.

Her practice combines critical research with a relational approach that honours artists’ authority to reclaim archives as living, spiritual, and intellectual legacies. Through this project and her wider work, Muyon seeks to open spaces for pan-African dialogue that affirms West and Central African contemporary art as complex, dynamic, and self-defined. She aims to build bridges between artists, publics, and institutions, using curating as a tool for cultural reclamation, theory, and renewal. Her commitment is to create enduring platforms that nurture and promote Congolese art, ensuring its presence not only in Africa but also in international conversations, rather than relying solely on short-lived exhibitions. Muyon believes in curating as both research and resistance — a way to hold space for African contemporary artists whose body of work aims to transform and elevate African art.