Congoville

Both the Middelheim Museum and the University of Antwerp are situated where the Colonial College was founded in 1920. More than one hundred years later, this is the occasion for the Middelheim Museum to examine and unfold the traces of the (post) colonial history of the site. It does so by bringing together new historical research with contemporary artistic views.

Guest Curator Sandrine Colard uses Congoville as a collective name for physical and mental traces of the colonial past in Belgium. These traces are often hidden in plain sight and continue to have a conscious or unconscious effect in today’s society. They include street names, buildings, monuments and myths, but also experiences borne by people with African roots. Certainly the Middelheim site, as a former focus point of colonial organisation, is part of this invisible city. For the exhibition, 15 internationally renowned artists, in the role of “black flâneurs,” take the visitor on a walk in the park. They guide us in a quest to represent once again an open and shared public space. On the basis of their artistic practice they present new and different perspectives to a history that is too often told from a single perspective. Together, the participating artists unfold the blueprint of Congoville, an imaginary city that still subconsciously affects us, but also encourages us to envision a decolonial future. Enter the virtual tour of the exhibition here. 

Curator: Sandrine Colard (Belgium/US)

Artists: Sammy Baloji (Belgium/Democratic Republic of the Congo), Bodys Isek Kingelez (Democratic Republic of the Congo), Maurice Mbikayi (Democratic Republic of the Congo), Jean Katambayi (Democratic Republic of the Congo), KINACT collectief (Democratic Republic of the Congo/France/The Netherlands/Belgium), Simone Leigh (US), Hank Willis Thomas (US), Zahia Rahmani (Algeria/France), Ibrahim Mahama (Ghana), Angela Ferreira (Portugal/Mozambique/South Africa), Kapwani Kiwanga (Canada), Sven Augustijnen (Belgium), Pascale Marthine Tayou (Cameroon/Belgium), Elisabetta Benassi (Italy), Pélagie Gbaguidi (Benin).

Together with Leuven University Press, Middelheim Museum is publishing a book that is at the same time an exhibition catalogue and a reference work comprising artistic and academic contributions. Alongside interviews with the artists, this richly illustrated volume opens with the exhibition’s conceptual essay by curator Sandrine Colard, followed by texts exploring the postcolonial urban mirroring between Belgium and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a reading of Belgian colonialism in light of Leopold Sedar Senghor and his Negritude philosophy, original historical research about Antwerp’s colonial college, as well as a reflection about resistance in historical writing about colonialism.

Authors: Sandrine Colard, Filip De Boeck, Nadia Yala Kisukidi, Bas De Roo, Sorana Munsya and Leonard Pongo.

Edited by Pieter Boons and guest editor Sandrine Colard.

Format: Monograph hardcover, 272 pages  (29.50 EUR)
ISBN: 9789462702363
Languages: Dutch/English
Buy online

Two online talks available on the Middelheim Museum website
An artist’s talk gathers curator Sandrine Colard with two of the 15 artists participating to Congoville. Pélagie Gbaguidi and Sammy Baloji, respectively originating from Senegal and The Democratic Republic of the Congo, are both based in Belgium. Exploring several of the exhibition’s facets, their discussion ranges from the role of education and public space in decolonization, and commemoration, among others. 

A book launch discussion moderated by Middelheim curator Pieter Boons gathers authors Sandrine Colard and Bas De Roo in conversation with  historian and co-founder of Black History Month Belgium Aminata Ndow. Zooming in on selected quotes from each essay in the book, Aminata weaves the multiplicity of voices together and talks about embracing post-colonial ghosts that haunt the Congoville book and exhibition.  

The two conversations were set in the main auditorium of the former Belgian Colonial College. In addition to being one of the exhibition venues of Congoville, the occupation of the school as a space for the creation of future decolonial archives seeks to reverse its role as Belgian colonial spirit’s matrix into a springboard for its unlearning.