Renzo Martens (born 1973 in Terneuzen) is a Dutch artist who currently lives and works in Amsterdam and Kinshasa. Martens became known for his controversial work, including Episode III: Enjoy Poverty (2008), a documentary that suggests that the Congo market their poverty as a natural resource. In 2010 Renzo Martens initiated the art institute Human Activities that postulates a gentrification program on a palm oil plantation in the Congolese rainforest. Biography Renzo Martens studied Political Science at the University of Nijmegen and art at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK) in Ghent and the Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. In 2010 Martens got approved as an artist-in-residence at the ISCP program in New York. In 2013 the artist attended the Yale World Fellows Program, the leadership program of Yale University. Martens is currently working on a PhD in the arts at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK) in Ghent. Martens has given lectures on art, economy and representation at University College London, London School of Economics, Yale University, Goldsmiths (University of London), Städelschule Frankfurt, HEAD Genève, KASK and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia in Madrid. Work Episode I Martens made his first film, Episode I, in 2000 in Grozny, in Chechnya's war zones. The film is an atypical documentary in which footage of a war zone is mixed with a personal (love) story of the artist. Martens is in search of himself; with the camera self-centered, he questions the Chechens on what they think of him. Episode III: Enjoy Poverty Episode III: Enjoy Poverty articulates a comment on the political claims of contemporary art by referring to its own strategy. This film opened the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) in 2009. The film was shown in art events and venues such as the Centre Pompidou, The Berlin Biennial, Manifesta 7, The Moscow Biennial, Tate Modern, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, 19th Biennale of Sydney and several film festivals. Azu Nwagbogu (Founder and Director of African Artists’ Foundation and Director of Lagos Photo) called the film "The Guernica of our time." Human Activities Martens is commissioned as the artistic director of the art institute Human Activities, founded in 2012. HA's goal is to prove that artistic critique on economic inequality can also do something about this inequality materially, instead of only symbolically. Human Activities attempts to improve the lives of people around the art center by effectuating a