Aequare. The Future That Never Was

Sammy Baloji his project is deployed in different chapters. Each chapter addresses the process of dematerialization of the landscape and the delocalization of pre-colonial social systems through colonial action. The installation will interlock in an open dialogue of historical and contemporary documents activated by the artistic gesture. The first part of the installation consists of a projection of a film made in and around the Yangambi Agricultural Center. The film combines archival footage with images from the artist his field research over the past few years. Visually, contemplative images of the vegetal landscape, the result of Belgian colonial agricultural experimentation, will be interspersed with views of obsolete colonial buildings occupied by Congolese agents and workers. The next chapter shows us the research by Johan Lagæ, an architectural historian and professor at Ghent University. His research is shown through archival documents and publications that convey the architectural and agricultural techniques used in the colonies located on the equator. The research is presented in display cases whose design is based on the collection cases present in Yangambi. The last part of the installation focusses on the Belgian architect Henry Lacoste and his project for the Belgian Pavilion at the 1935 World Fair. This project, which was never realised, was entitled Panorama Atmosphérique. Lacoste proposed the geo-hydrographic and climatic reconstruction of an exploration trip to the Belgian Congo, with the ambition of reflecting the power and progress of the colonial enterprise in the Congo. Sammy Baloji worked on a critical and pœtic interpretation of the architectural design by Lacoste, renamed, The Extracted Pavilion.