Brussels2030 participated in the cultural, academic, political and economic mission in Kinshasa. The colonial heritage, its memory and the writing of a common future between Kinshasa and Brussels will be central to the preparation of the candidacy for the title of European Capital of Culture.
This mission, which has the advantage of being transversal, is an opportunity to forge links between the different players and to discover academic and artistic talent. These meetings will already feed into the Summer Assembly, which will take place from 4 to 8 July and beyond! In September, our partner KANAL will host the ‘Living Traces’ exhibition, which was inaugurated this week in Kinshasa.
Brussels2030 wants to put the link between Brussels and Kinshasa, and between Belgium and Congo (2030 is also the bicentenary of our country’s existence) centre stage. This bond has a historical but also a very contemporary dimension, and decolonisation is an integral and inseparable part of it. The Congolese of the Brussels diaspora will also be involved, as well as the Congolese living in Kinshasa and Congo today. Participation in this mission is an important step in this preparation and in this process, which will allow us to meet many of those directly involved and to exchange views with them.
These pictures were taken:
- during the performance ‘Leopoldville mourning’ by the Kinshasa-based artist Prisca Tankwey who, at the end of a funeral procession, buried colonial Kinshasa to enable the city’s population to mourn colonisation and put an end to the ‘everything used to be better’ attitude,
- during a meeting with ‘Bebson De La Rue’, a singer and musician from Kinshasa who trained and influenced a whole generation of Congolese artists,
- during a debate on colonial history and its restitution by researchers from the ULB, the VUB and the University of Kinshasa, in particular on the place of the colonial past in contemporary art,
- and during the opening of the ‘Living Traces’ exhibition at the Académie des beaux-arts de Kinshasa.