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Laura

The essential artivism of Laura NSENGIYUMVA

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Contemporary art does not escape the many social issues that prove to be an integral part of it. The Brussels-based multidisciplinary artist Laura Nsengiyumva rightly demonstrates the importance of a decolonial art practice and thought. She questions the art world and the way in which societal inequalities are reproduced in public spaces.

Through videos, performances and other plastic realizations, Nsengiyumva highlights the Afrophobia of the system that surrounds us. Art merges within this system and is a reflection of it, which makes it political by nature. This political character is as much overestimated as it is underestimated. Nsengiyumva herself notes with concern the danger of a simple “aesthetic revolution”, the glamourization of the smallest subversions. As Audre Lorde says in her essay “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” (1979), no liberation will be achieved without the oppressed defining themselves in their own terms, determining themselves in another system, developing new ways of fighting and, above all, of thinking. The master may allow the oppressed to temporarily beat him at his own game, but will never allow them to bring about real change.

Nsengiyumva thus develops a practice with a singular ontology, an artivism that is as much artistic work as it is activist project. She fully seizes the political identity of art and mobilizes it to attack various incarnations of racism in Belgium. For example, since 2017 she has made appearances as Queen Nikkolah on the occasion of Saint Nicholas Day (6 December). Dressed in a red tunic and her hair styled like a miter, she distributes candy to good children. She offers a cheery ceremony, as a wholesome alternative to the racist folklore that has Saint Nicholas [Santa Claus] accompanied by a black bogeyman [named Black Pete]. An experiment conducted by Bamko-Cran in Brussels in 2019 revealed that the latter is identified by children as an African who embodies the role of the bad guy, the jerk and the servant. With her performance, Nsengiyumva denounces the pejorative effects that these representations have on the self-image of Afro-Belgian children. Such ritualized aggression participates in structural oppressions that limit the full potential of their social development. As a particularly vulnerable group, children of African descent are pushed into what Miltos Santos labels a “mutilated citizenship”, which deprives them of the possibility of seeing themselves as full members of the society of which they are nevertheless part.

Nsengiyumva also seizes the opportunity to think about the involvement of those who promote these traditions as insidious weapons of racist domination. She rejects any assignment that requires her to embody a vile or inferior figure; she reclaims her power and asserts herself as a figure of active resistance against Afrophobia. In her red costume, she also dissolves representations of the bogeyman in a literal way by melting his effigies in chocolate over a low flame; this melting process is a recurrent technique in her work.

At the All-Nighter of 6 October 2018, Nsengiyumva presented her installation PeoPL for the first time. For this installation, she topples an ice replica of the equestrian statue of Leopold II from its pedestal, which melts into a sober but irreversible temporality. She thus criticizes the position that the monarch still holds in public space and in collective consciousness in Belgium. His heroization in the urban space is crystallized through various other markers of the colonial past that continue to live and function as propaganda. The artist speaks of it as a “Lesson of radicality: time matters”. Decolonial activists and their allies, including academics, vandals, and citizens committed to changing the current mindset, are making it increasingly difficult for problematic institutions to go unchallenged, as they press for discussions about the exclusionary and elitist nature of these institutions. This leads to the creation of platforms for the subalternized, who are increasingly taken seriously as a result of these approaches. This installation opposes the politics of the status quo and stands as an ode to those who take action to dissolve the myths that were historically constructed to glorify some and subjugate others. Nsengiyumva thus demonstrates how essential and indispensable it is to have a full awareness of art as a tool for political struggle.

 

— Prof. dr. BEKERS Elisabeth and CONDEROLLE Maéva. 

Muhiba

A talk with Muhiba BOTAN

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Muhiba Botan is a young Somali-Dutch artist born in 1988. Currently based in Antwerp, she explores in her practice various themes related to the intersection of gender and racial in identity issues. She explores the perception of the other in our society and conducts her research primarily through photography and video. She also has a particular interest in cinema, which is apparent in the many references she integrates in her projects, some subtle, some more explicit. Her work reveals her sensitivity to social, political and cultural issues concerning the African diaspora. Botan examines the provenance of myths about people of African descent and the processes through which they are constructed, and exposes their far-reaching consequences. Her work invites the viewer to join her in this questioning, reinvention even, of society’s imaginary perceptions.

The way in which black people, black experiences, were positioned and subject-ed in the dominant regimes of representation were the effects of a critical exercise of cultural power and normalization. Not only, in Said’s “Orientalist” sense, were we constructed as different and other within the categories of knowledge of the West by those regimes. They had the power to make us se and experience ourselves as “Other.”

—Stuart Hall

Can you talk about your inspirations?

It’s a really large mix of many things. Almost anything that’s art can inspire me. I really admire the way other artists take a concept or a story and then express it through their artwork, in their own way. So I am not just inspired by photographers; it’s not even purely visual. The main thing is that I like the way artists tell a story. When it’s beautiful, interesting and honest, it can be any kind of medium of expression. I really value the story artists tell.

Do you have a project that seems emblematic, representative of your practice?

I would say The Myth of the Other is my most emblematic work. It started with me finding a picture of a little girl in a small enclosed space. Behind the barrier there is a crowd of white people and one white woman in particular is handing the little black girl an apple or something else to eat. That picture seemed preposterous and I wasn’t sure about what was going on. I did a reverse image search on google and discovered the existence of human zoos. I was in shock, seeing how this was not discussed in school, and kept from  public knowledge.

Then I did a lot of research about it. One of the things that struck me especially was how for many “ordinary” Europeans this was the first time they were meeting persons from other continents. I found it eye-opening to learn that a lot of the stereotypes that we experience today were born, cemented at that moment. There is also a myth concerning the free will of the participants in these human zoos. Europeans stole those people because they needed them. When we think about the power dynamics that where in place, there is no way that some could have been there willingly, no way that that little girl was there willingly.

The common run of Europeans flocked to the human zoos in large masses to witness this lie. For most of them, this was their first encounter with non-white people and it was presented to them as a way to get to know the “Other”. They pretended to show Europeans how those foreigners lived and what their cultures were, but they never gave a real insight into these cultures because their real goal was to support the colonial enterprise. They constructed an exotic fantasy, rather than coherent cultures; they mixed several things to accentuate the cultural gap. The human zoos were designed to show how much these African people embodied difference, but also how much they themselves, as Europeans, were different. That’s how, for the general public, those kinds of images took root and solidified. It’s really curious to see the longevity of the myth of the Other, even though it was not a fair representation of these people’s culture at all. And so, it is important to witness the way in which things were grounded in falsehood still have an effect on us this day.

I have been particularly impressed by Stuart Hall; his work just makes sense to me. He supports the idea that to interrogates stereotypes is to dismantle them. And when you interrogate those stereotypes created with these human zoos, you immediately see they are based on falsehood. Because they took aspects from each and every culture to make the most exotic culture, even though it was not realistic.

 

In The Myth of the Other work I wanted to highlight how the other is created, how flimsy those stereotypes are and how unrealistic. I did not want to just reproduce or feed those stereotypes. I wanted to interrogate them by making their artificiality visible. The West had to create an Other to reaffirm their status and justify their actions: “They are different from us, we have to use violence”. They simultaneously created the pinnacle of perfection, the archetype. I thought it would be interesting to use references to pop culture and to films presenting the “all-American dream”, which is also clearly a fantasy. We know when we watch those films that it’s fake, that they are a product exported to justify domination. I found it important to create and confront both these fantasies. The one doesn’t exist without other; you have to have them both. We can feel the fakeness in both. As they are both self-portraits, this raises the question: “Why can’t we read those images for what they are, when we can do this for other images?”.

 

I also note that there are many layers in your images. Who will be capable to immediately give them a profound reading and relate to them? Who will stick to a superficial reading of what is made explicit?

 

I refer to my own history, my own family. My father was Minister of Education in Somalia, but when he came to the Netherlands – where I lived before moving in Belgium – the only jobs he could found where cleaning jobs. The older I get, the more horrified I am by this. There is nothing wrong with cleanings jobs, but there is something wrong with having no other option. That someone who was a minister of education didn’t have the opportunity to choose another profession. That this is the only option given to someone who has lost everything in the war. His story isn’t the only one; it’s the story for many of us. All of this has had an impact on my family, and on myself too.

I like the idea of making something that our own community can recognize, that makes them feel something. This influenced my choice of working with those stereotypes rather than others. It’s important to me that Afropeans, members of the diaspora, refugees, would be able to read my work.  I had great feedback about my work from my own community; they can get more out of it, and put more into it.

But I really do struggle with how the white audience and institution may interpret my work. Up to this point, my work always been clear to them, even if for them it is not as complex as it is for others, because the artificiality is made very explicit and can be understood by everyone. Nonetheless, I want to remain careful. For example, the picture with the stuffed monkey at the breast: I just refuse to show it, or to sell it, on its own. And on the other hand, it saddens me that I have to think about these things. Black artists deserve to have the same freedom that any other artist would have.

— BOTAN Muhiba interviewed by CONDEROLLE Maéva,

transcript and writing by Prof. dr. BEKERS Elisabeth.

Agnes LALAU

A talk with Agnès LALAU

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What are your references, not necessarily artistic, but also theoretical? Which books, authors, people etc. have influenced you?

When I truly started thinking about my project on black femininity and became engaged in a more consciously political practice, I was very much influenced by the African-American artist Kara Walker. The discovery of her work was pivotal because of its political and poetic qualities. Her work really spoke to me, as she was talking about slavery at a time when I was interested in the history of colonization and I was constantly making connections between these two subjects.

 

On a theoretical level, I have been very much influenced by the book, Léopold Sédar Senghor: l’art africain comme philosophie (Riveneuve, 2007) by Souleymane Bachir Diagne, a Senegalese author. He talks about African art as a philosophy; he develops Senghor’s ideas in this regard. Diagne addresses the Western perception of African art and notes how African creative practices have been poorly addressed, and considered systematically in ethnographic or highly aesthetic terms. He deconstructs this to return to the source, the soul of African art objects. This thought has been a reference for some of the work I have been doing lately.

 

This was the case for what I presented a few months ago at the cultural center of La Louvière. For this work  I departed from a piece of Kuba fabric; the Kuba are a people from the Congolese region of Kasai. I really departed from these textiles, questioned my perception of these patterns as well as the way in which they are generally presented in the West today, i.e. in very “design” interiors accentuating their decorative aspect, or in museums where these pieces lose their lives. These loincloths are supposed to be seen worn during ceremonies and not presented in such a disembodied manner.  I made a series of large drawings that I have entitled Mbal, after the word for ‘raffia’ in the Kuba language.

 

Do you have a favorite medium?

 

Initially I was mainly drawing, then I did a lot of painting and for the past three years I have been engraving. I navigate between these techniques, but I always work on paper. My explorations used to be especially in colour, but nowadays I tend to opt for brown or black and white. I choose my technique in relation to what I want to express. My choice very much depends on my subject of study.

 

My work is sometimes figurative, sometimes abstract and full of symbolism (as in the Wild Nature series). At the moment, I am using video; I animate my drawings from engravings by working with fades. I am currently making a film with this kind of animation. It’s the most intimate work I’ve done so far. It’s about a conversation with my mother about the Tshiluba language, my mother tongue that I don’t speak. Although it’s not yet finished, this piece already seems to me to be the most emblematic of my work.

 

What is the thematic field in which your work is inscribed?

 

Transmission, as in what we choose to transmit or not; memory, and more particularly what emerges unconsciously. All these questions are recurrent in my work and touch on culture, identity. My projects testify to my personal path, in the field of Afrofeminism, via my research into the history of colonization. The fact that I take up these questions gives much more meaning to my work as an artist. Added to this is my discovery and desire to reconnect with my Congolese culture, which I know little about. My origins, Belgian and Congolese, shed light on my questioning of identity. It is a hybrid identity and I can ignore neither one nor the other. Where does one feel at home when one has one’s feet between two countries? One feels the lack, the emptiness when one lacks access to one’s culture. Home is an experience that must be built. This is what nourishes my universe.

 

On a professional level, I work with people who are dealing with the same kind of identity issues that I am also struggling with: people with immigrant backgrounds, without papers, who are waiting to receive their new nationality. This makes me think about decolonization, especially since I myself spent my childhood in Burundi. This experience has influenced me in the way I approach these subjects. My field of research also reflects what is currently happening in Belgian society. For a long time, colonization was glossed over. Thanks to the decolonial movements, this issue is being returned to public debate, and there are more and more initiatives in this regard. Today we are discovering many Congolese and Afro artists, and this is very exciting.

 

— LALAU Agnès interviewed by CONDEROLLE Maéva,

transcript and writing by Prof. dr. BEKERS Elisabeth.

Precy

Precy NUMBI and his alter-egos

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Precy Numbi is a young artist with many identities. Born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 1992, he grew up with a head full of Western superhero stories. In 2015, he graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Kinshasa. Although he studied in a department dedicated to interior architecture, he turned his attention to performance art. In 2018, he performed with the collective Kin-Act Jardin de Sang, a work that commented on political current events with its condemnation of  the Beni massacres. The company’s subsequent arrest for public disorder, followed by ten days in prison, made Numbi understand the importance of having a superheroic identity to shield his civilian identity; it also led to the birth of his alter-egos, who collectively form the “Kimbalabala Republic”. 

In Numbi’s performances materials and ordinary objects take center stage. He sees art as full of ‘precarious materials’ from our daily lives, ordinary objects that sometimes are more durable than they were intended to be. He questions the trajectory of the scraps he encounters, and the habit of Western countries to send their waste to Africa. He condemns the speed with which goods expire and lose their original ‘added value’, and regards the massive quantity of waste that he observes around him as an emblem of the over-consumption of contemporary neo-liberal societies. Numbi’s materials, although emptied of their primary role, generally are still identifiable.  For example, by integrating various electronic circuits for mobile phones into his costumes he highlights how their manufacture requires the extraction of coltan (columbite-tantalite). The DRC has between 60 and 80% of the world’s reserves of this mineral, which is mined in terrible conditions by 40,000 children and subsequently sent abroad, to the profit of large companies based on other continents. Once the mobile phones cease to function, they are sent back to Africa as waste. In Numbi’s hands, these trivialized  waste objects become symptoms of various issues related to overproduction; their presence an indicating that a mounting problem, a manifestation of a failure, technical as well as societal and ecological.

These reflections, among others, have given rise to the Robot-Sapiens Kimbalabala, which Numbi often uses in his perforances. The name is a neologism derived from “kimbala”, a Lingala slang term for the wear and tear of a vehicle that has undergone several successive repairs. Numbi thus plays with the slipperiness of language, the doubling of the suffix emphasizing the obsolescence of the machine. The fungible, expendable nature of the elements with which he makes his compositions does not imply that they are fragile or ephemeral, as generally these objects have had a short initial existence but are destined to last as waste. By reusing them, Numbi inhabits them, brings them back to life. The armored suit in which Numbi performs curbs his movements, which are dictated by the suits hooks and weight (ca. twenty kilos) and follow a robotic choreography so as not to collide with the body wearing the costume. Numbi’s robot-sapiens are reminiscent of characters in dystopian fiction and enable him to visualize the future of the debris. They give expression to eco-futurist considerations and show how the degradation of the environment by humans also has effects on the nature of the human being himself. 

Numbi links these notions of futurism and ecology to a decolonization of public space and thought. He invites those who come across him to become their own heroic figure. In Kinshasa, he works with children, whom he invites to think outside the references disseminated by the West and to decolonize their imagination. He reminds them that Africans do not have to be the ‘Others’ as presented in the Western imagination. He encourages them to be the superheroes instead, and to decide for themselves what their superheroes look like and to embody them as they see fit. All the children can become heroic actors in the struggles of their community. 

The members of the Kimbalabala Republic serve different roles and specific functions. One of the costumes is conspicuous in size and color, and when wearing it Numbi warns his audience against bad driving. Its visibility allows it to be spotted from a distance by drivers, who must therefore slow down. While this alter-ego is dedicated to road safety, other identities allow him to highlight other problems he perceives around him.

Numbi also performs in Belgium, where he criticizes the tendency of local institutions to try and distance themselves from the issues he raises by limiting his practice to the vague label of “African Art”. He makes people think about their own involvement in the issues he raises. For instance, in his studio in Brussels, Numbi creates outfits with locally found rubbish on the Belgian roadsides. He confronts the population with their own litter, which turns out to be similar to what he finds in Kinshasa. By thus exploring the world around him in performance, Numbi adopts a living art practice that is resolutely contemporary.

— Prof. dr. BEKERS Elisabeth and CONDEROLLE Maéva.