Contemporary photography from the DRC

Congo Eza – prints of dreams and realities

Rarely do you have the opportunity to feast your eyes on such a beautiful book of photographs featuring the work of creative people from this part of Africa. Congo Eza is the exception that proves the rule – although there have been others, like the special edition of Revue Noire in 2001 which extolled the virtues of art photography.Congo Eza brings together the contemporary reality of Congo, the recent war and the bustle of everyday life and the country’s creativity.

The book is a collection of emotions and snapshots. Black, white and in colour. Spontaneity, dramatic composition, insolence, revolt, transgression, light-heartedness and humour: 24 photographers from diverse backgrounds. They have one thing in common: participatation in one of two artistic events and training programmes organised by the Wallonia-Brussels Delegation in Kinshasa and the Foreign Relations section of the French Community of Belgium, amongst which ‘Yambi’, the 2007 Congolese Culture festival in Belgium. The Brussels-based AFRICALIA association decided to record the success of their get-togethers in this high-end publication.

Linking the the different sections of the book are selected verbs in lingala which punctuate the various chapters. Kokekola, to learn, to bring up, to grow. The primarily black and white idealised images evoke people’s desire to learn from books, in sports fields and from loved ones. Sadly, also through that most common of children’s games ‘playing at war’, as singer and poet, Marie-Louise Bibish Mumbu’s introduction to this chapter explains. Her contribution is a marvellous piece of writing. It is beautifully written, as is all the poetry that accompanies this pictorial journey through the kaleidoscope of Congolese life, its hopes and dreams.

Other verbs in Lingala: kobouger, a word for to move, to travel; kolingana, to love one another, to make love; kobeta libanga, to survive, to get by; komilakisa, to appear, to pose; kosambela, to pray; kokoma, to write, to mark,to paint. Finally, kopana bakambi, to choose, to vote, to elect, featured in epigraph with a tragic, yet amusing poem by the Congolese author, Fiston Nasser Mwanza.

Hegel Goutier