Style Congo. Heritage & Heresy

Style Congo. Heritage & Heresy explores the politics of cultural representation and appropriation through contemporary artistic and architectural interventions as well as historical documents and materials from the CIVA collections. The exhibition offers a visual chronicle of the representation of the Congo at the international exhibitions held between 1885 and 1958, taking Art Nouveau as its starting point. This movement - known at the time as the "Congo Style“- coincided with the exploitation of the Congo by King Leopold II, and reflected a fascination with "exotic“materials and forms.

The works in the exhibition challenge and destabilise the canonical histories and colonial roots of this heritage. By examining the marks of colonisation in the city of Brussels and the Congolese urban landscape, they present a decolonial resignification of private and public spaces, and seek to rewrite the margins of history at the centre.

Co-Production: KANAL - Centre Pompidou / Living Traces & Twenty Nine Studio. Commissioned: Sammy Baloji, Silvia Franceschini, Nikolaus Hirsch, Estelle Lecaille.