Kim Mupangilai

Belgian-Congolese, New York-based interior architect and furniture designer who moved to the city in 2018 and teaches at Parsons School of Design. Her debut Kasaï furniture collection, shown at Superhouse in Manhattan, used teak, volcanic and river stone, raffia, rattan, and banana-leaf fiber to reference Congolese craft traditions and materials. Raised in Puurs, Belgium, Mupangilaï studied interior architecture at LUCA School of Arts/KU Leuven, made her first piece under her grandfather's mentorship, and came to New York for a design-firm traineeship that included work on the Greenpoint bar Ponyboy. Developed over more than two years, the seven-piece Kasaï collection draws its design language from the abstract, symbolic forms of historical Congolese currency objects and includes an armoire titled Mwasi; it was shown as "Hue I Am, Hue Am I" at Superhouse Vitrine in 2023.