He has a diploma in Latin and philosophy and a master’s degree in information and communication design from the University of Lubumbashi. He signed his first contract as a draughtsman at the age of 15 with a local NGO for the production of a comic strip to raise AIDS awareness. Starting in 2002, Tétshim was responsible for the comic department of the Vicano Club, an established artists’ collective in Lubumbashi, where he organised several comic exhibitions and training courses in the following years. As a caricaturist, he published works in the magazines L’Etendard and L’Essor du Katanga. In the following years, Tétshim’s work received several awards, including the African comic book festival SABDAM 2005 in Kinshasa, the Italian magazine Africa e Mediterraneo 2006 in Italy and the Lyon Comics Festival in the same year.
In 2010, Tétshim founded the Studio Crayon de cuivre together with video artist Frank Mukunday, where they create experimental films that become very popular through local television stations in Lubumbashi. The film “Machini” by Tétshim and Mukunday was shown in 2019 at the Lubumbashi Biennale, the DOK Leipzig, the Festival d’Annecy and the International Film Festival in Rotterdam, among others. Tétshim is currently developing experimental forms of graphic storytelling – his drawings alternate between illustration, comics, animation and visual art.
