first word
Anti-Pathos
by Dominique Malaquais
To live in Europe in the early twenty-first
century is to daily witness governments
and the police forces that act at their behest
violating the rights of men, women, and children hailing from the “South.” In large part,
this violence is perpetrated in the name of a
“migratory crisis.” Politicians and large swaths
of the media insist that the “old continent”
is bursting at the seams with “illegal” or “irregular” migrants whose presence threatens
its economic and demographic equilibrium
(Beauchemin and Ichou 2016: 15). These
claims are belied by reality. From Denmark
to Germany, Spain, and beyond, immigration numbers have decreased in recent years
(IOM 2020: 38) and, with them, as in the
United States, prospects for economic growth
(Goolsbee 2019). Most European countries
are in need of foreign influx to fill jobs, counteract falling birth rates, increase tax bases
required to shore up deteriorating social
safety nets, and boost innovation (Albis,
Boubtane, and Coulibaly 2018; Goldin, Pitt,
Nabarro, and Boyle 2018; IOM 2020: 24;
OECD 2014). On this, even conservative
sources agree (Giulgiano 2019; Kenny 2019).1
Such facts, however, are not compatible with
populist vote-mongering, a practice in which
most political leaders on this side of the Atlantic engage, some in the most overt manner,
others (as in France, where I live) in terms
all the more pernicious for the humanitarian
doublespeak in which they are couched.2
This practice and the constituencies whose
approval ratings it aims to attract commonly
single out immigration3 from the African
continent as a particular danger (Smith
2019). Steeped in systemic racism, such
Dominique Malaquais is a senior researcher at Institut des Mondes Africains (CNRS,
Paris). Her work addresses intersections between contemporary urban cultures and political and economic violence in the Capitalocene. She is the author of several books and
numerous articles, notably on contemporary
arts and political engagement in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Cameroon.
With Kadiatou Diallo, she is cofounder of the
experimental curatorial platform SPARCK
(Space for Pan-African Research, Creation
and Knowledge). dmalaquais@gmail.com
finger-pointing hinges on three fallacious
claims: that massive numbers of people are entering Europe from Africa; that this movement
is overwhelmingly driven by economic rather
than political causes; and that freedom from
economic insecurity is not a universal human
right. Activists positioned on the left work determinedly to rebut these claims and to show
the extent to which they are rooted in the late
capitalist project. Mainstream actors tend to
eschew structural considerations of this kind
in favor of arguments they feel are more likely
to sway large numbers of people. Accordingly,
their campaigns primarily focus on the deadly
conditions often faced in transit by persons
seeking to exit the continent and on the
dehumanization to which they are subjected
on arrival. Foregrounding this abysmal state of
affairs is, needless to say, critical, but highlighting it alone can have noxious effects. Among
these is the risk that the people in whose name
such campaigns are waged will be seen as figures of pathos rather than as self-determined
protagonists making reasoned decisions in the
face of catastrophic odds.
Artists based in Africa and in the diaspora
are increasingly taking to task such perceptions. In work explicitly centered on questions
of agency, they cast aside tropes of disempowerment. Shunning sentiments of sadness or
pity and steering clear of sensationalism, they
deploy a stark critique of global systems at play
in the late capitalist era. The resulting films and
photographs, assemblages, installations, and
performances act as striking interventions in,
and powerful correctives to, the media-saturated, politically instrumentalized discourse on
immigration.
I consider here two bodies of work that
stand as rebukes to this discourse. Quite
1 Kongo Astronauts
Untitled; After Schengen series (2019)
Digital print
Photo: © Kongo Astronauts
different in terms of materials, form, content, and intent alike, they do not belong to a
genre—an art of immigration. Indeed, only
one directly addresses the subject. What links
them, rather, is a thematic focus on Africa as
a staging ground for movement: movement of
people, objects, and ideas between the continent and the world at large, in active refusal of
roadblocks thrown up to impede it and of the
social, political, and economic structures that
undergird these obstacles.
AFTER SCHENGEN?
In 2019, the Kinshasa-based artists’ collective Kongo Astronauts produced a series
of performances and photographs titled
After Schengen. These were orchestrated in a
grounded and gutted jet on the outskirts of
the Congolese capital. In each of the photographs—eleven in all—a lone astronaut
appears, clad in a gold helmet, jumpsuit, and
boots. He stands at the center of an airplane
cabin emptied of all but its insulation (Fig.
1), in one of its wheel wells, on a wing (Fig.
2), framed in the craft’s doorway, or walking
away from its carcass-like form (Fig. 3). The
astronaut is performance artist Michel Ekeba,
the photographer Eléonore Hellio. Together,
they founded the collective in 2013.
Ekeba’s presence in, atop, and alongside
the marooned jet can be understood in one
of two largely contradictory ways. From
France, one’s first reaction, conditioned by
media coverage of immigration, is that one
is looking at an allegory of clandestine travel.
VOL. 53, NO. 3 AUTUMN 2020 african arts
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/afar_a_00532 by guest on 24 April 2021
|1
2 Kongo Astronauts
Untitled; After Schengen series (2019)
Digital print
Photo: © Kongo Astronauts
A Parisian colleague of mine, presented with
the photographs, saw in them an expression
of desperate flight. From Congo, the series
reads differently. For a year, from 2018 to 2019,
following a diplomatic row between the DRC
and the European Union, Schengen House,
the Belgian-run administrative center through
which all visa applications for travel to Europe
are processed, was shuttered. Obtaining travel
documents, already exceedingly difficult,
became a veritable nightmare. Considered in
this setting, the title After Schengen reads as
a question: Where to now? The photographs
present the collective’s response: To the stars.
While the ambiguity is intentional (a point
I will return to), in the larger context of the
Kongo Astronauts’ work it is clear that the
second reading is the intended one. The heavens here, however, are less a physical location,
a place the artists intend to visit, than a metaphorical arena. They function as a platform
for thinking through Earth’s decimation by an
economic model rooted in the colonial project
and amplified in the neoliberal era. This is
suggested by Ekeba’s garb. From head to toe,
his suit is studded with bent and broken computer and smartphone parts collected from the
city’s markets and scrap heaps. This e-waste—
detritus shipped (much of it illegally) from the
“North” and, increasingly, the “East”—speaks
to practices that have effectively turned the
African continent into a digital dumping
ground. The choice of materials also references the plundering of Congo’s resources by
multinational corporations: The discarded
african arts consortium
• UCLA • Rhodes University • University University of Florida • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill •
CONSORTIUM EDITORS
UCLA
Marla C. Berns, UCLA
Erica P. Jones, UCLA
Peri Klemm, Cal State Northridge
Patrick A. Polk, UCLA
Allen F. Roberts, UCLA
Rhodes University
Rachel Baasch, Rhodes University
Steven Foloaranmi, Obafemi Awolowo University
Angelo Kakande, Makarere University
Emi Koide, Universidade Federal do Recôncavo da Bahia
Ruth Simbao, Rhodes University
University of Florida
Susan Cooksey, University of Florida
Álvaro Lúis Lima, University of Florida
Fiona Mc Laughlin, University of Florida
Robin Poynor, University of Florida
MacKenzie Moon Ryan, Rollins College
University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
Carol Magee, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
David G. Pier, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Victoria L. Rovine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Lisa Homann, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Priscilla Layne, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Editorial Office
Leslie Ellen Jones, Executive Editor and Art Director
Eva P. Howard, Operations Manager
DEPARTMENTAL EDITORS
dialogue editor
Amanda Maples
book review editor
Heather Shirey
exhibition review editor, north america
Elizabeth Perrill
exhibition review editor, global
Dunja Hersak
photo essay editor
Christraud M. Geary
CONSULTING EDITORS
Rowland Abiodun
Mary Jo Arnoldi
Kathleen Bickford Berzock
Suzanne Preston Blier
Elisabeth L. Cameron
Christa Clarke
Henry John Drewal
William Hart
Shannen Hill
Bennetta Jules-Rosette
Christine Mullen Kreamer
Alisa LaGamma
Constantine Petridis
John Picton
Doran H. Ross
Dana Rush
Raymond A. Silverman
Robert Farris Thompson
Kenji Yoshida
African Arts (ISSN 0001-9933 print, 1937-2108 online) is published
quarterly by the University of California, Los Angeles, CA 900951310, in spring, summer, autumn, and winter. For editorial information consult our websites at http://www.international.ucla.edu/
africa/africanarts/ and https://www.mitpressjournals.org/loi/afar or
email African Arts at afriartsedit@international.ucla.edu (editorial);
afriartsbus@international.ucla.edu (operations).
The opinions of contributors and advertisers are not necessarily
those of African Arts.
Subscription information: African Arts is distributed by The MIT
Press, Cambridge, MA 02142. Subscription and address changes
should be addressed to MIT Press Journals, One Rogers Street,
Cambridge, MA 02142-1209. Phone: 617-253-2889, US and Canada
800-207-8354. Fax: 617-577-1545. Email: journals-orders@mit.edu.
For fastest service and more information, subscribe online using
our secure server at http://mitpressjournals.org/aa. Subscription
rates: print and electronic, Individuals $100.00, Students/retirees
$58.00, Institutions $235.00; online only, Individuals $90.00, Students/retirees $46, Institutions $198.00. Canadians add 5% GST.
Outside the U.S. and Canada add $23.00 for postage and handling
for print edition. Individual JSTOR Access Fee: $25 for Volumes
1–45 online from JSTOR Prices subject to change without notice.
Single issues: Individuals $24.00; institutions $54.00. Canadians add
5% GST. Outside the U.S. and Canada add $6.00 per issue for postage and handling. Prices subject to change without notice.
POSTMASTER: Send address changes to African Arts, MIT Press
Journals, One Rogers Street, Cambridge, MA 02142-1209. Periodicals postage paid at Boston, MA and at additional post offices.
Permission to photocopy articles for internal or personal use
is granted by the copyright owner for users registered with the
Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), Transactional Reporting Service, provided that the per copy fee of $10 per article is paid directly to the CCC, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 02193 (fee
code: ISSN 0001-9933). Address all other inquiries to the Subsidiary Rights Manager, MIT Press Journals, One Rogers Street, Cambridge, MA 02142-1209. Phone: 617-253-2864. Fax: 617-259-5028.
Email: journals-rights@mit.edu.
African Arts is abstracted and/or indexed in IBZ: International Bibliography of Periodical Literature; SCOPUS; MLA International
Bibliography
© 2020 by the Regents of the University of California. African Arts
Journal Consortium
Printed in Hong Kong
african arts presents original research and critical discourse on traditional, contemporary, and popular African arts and expressive cultures. Since 1967, the journal has reflected the dynamism and diversity of several
fields of humanistic study, publishing richly illustrated articles in full color, incorporating the most current theory, practice, and intercultural dialogue. The journal offers readers peer-reviewed scholarly articles
concerning a striking range of art forms and visual cultures of the world’s second-largest continent and its diasporas, as well as special thematic issues, book and exhibition reviews, features on museum collections,
exhibition previews, artist portfolios, photo essays, edgy dialogues, and editorials. african arts promotes investigation of the interdisciplinary connections among the arts, anthropology, history, language, politics,
religion, performance, and cultural and global studies. All articles have been reviewed by members of the editorial board.
2
|
african arts AUTUMN 2020 VOL. 53, NO. 3
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/afar_a_00532 by guest on 24 April 2021
3 Kongo Astronauts
Untitled; After Schengen series (2019)
Digital print
Photo: © Kongo Astronauts
motherboards, wires, and batteries that cover
the astronaut’s suit contain precious metals—
copper and gold, zinc, tantalum, lithium—
mined across the DRC amid abject violence by
foreign conglomerates working hand in hand
with a corrupt local elite.
In parts of Congo, the dumping and the
plundering to which Ekeba’s performances and
Hellio’s photographs allude have resulted in
near-apocalyptic living conditions. The Kongo
Astronauts’ work calls out this state of affairs.
Rather than spotlighting the conditions themselves, however, it points to their causes. This
approach is characteristic of the collective’s
production in general: while it is often jarring,
echoing the brutality of high-stakes extractive
capitalism, it eschews pathos and rarely devolves into voyeurism. This sets it apart from
much-touted work focused on Congo that
hinges on precisely these modes of representation. A comparison of After Schengen with
performances staged for a recent documentary
on the Kinshasa art scene by Renaud Barret,
Système K (2019), and with Congo-centered
photographic work by Richard Mosse (2011)
proves instructive in this regard. Some of the
Système K performances are meant explicitly
to shock; a case in point is a piece by Yannos
Majestikos (Yannick Makanka Tungaditu), in
which the artist is wheeled through a Kinshasa
neighborhood immersed in a bathtub brimming with coagulated blood. Richard Mosse’s
Infra series (2011), shot in war-torn Eastern
Congo, similarly deploys shock value. Verdant
landscapes appear as if saturated in blood—
the result of an infrared film technique that
replaces green with garish pink hues.
The Kongo Astronauts’ choice to steer
clear of the emotional charge that animates
many an image intended to represent Congo
4
|
extends to the subject of immigration. If,
faced with a shuttered Schengen House, their
answer is to aim for the stars, the larger point
of After Schengen seems to be that Europe
no longer holds much relevance, either as a
place to inhabit (at least in the long term) or
as one from which to think the world. This is
a shift away from earlier Congo-based work
by Eléonore Hellio—notably in the context
of a now-defunct collective called Mowoso
that she cofounded with video artist Dicoco
Boketshu—in which exile to Europe was
a significant thematic concern (Malaquais
2018). This is not to say that exile is no longer
a focus—quite the contrary; the Astronauts’
website4 is clear in this regard: “notions of
exile” and “survival tactics,” they state, are
central to their practice. It is, rather, to suggest
that exile, for them, hinges only in part on
physical location. First and foremost, it is a
matter of “resistance to psychic ghettoes born
of the postcolonial condition” (the words are
Hellio’s). In this conceptualization, moving
away in the mind is as relevant as doing so
in person. Discussing his performances,
Michel Ekeba underscores this. He describes
his transformation into the astronaut as both
exhausting and mind-altering: The weight of
the suit and the heat it generates in Kinshasa’s
equatorial climate create in him a trancelike
state that radically alters his viewpoint. In a
Sun Ra-esque move, his eyes become those
of a being come from another planet, able to
register what he and others might otherwise
fail to detect (Malaquais 2019).5
This out-of-body experience is what Hellio’s
photographs seek to capture, for in it she sees
the basis for an alternative reading of a world
gone haywire. She intends for us look as if
through the astronaut’s eyes (Malaquais 2019).
african arts AUTUMN 2020 VOL. 53, NO. 3
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/afar_a_00532 by guest on 24 April 2021
Considered in this light, the After Schengen
photographs read not as, per my Parisian colleague’s gaze, an image of exile—yearned for,
attempted, desperate—but as an image from
exile: an exile that has already taken place, in
the mind, away from the violence visited on
the country by a century-and-a-half of savage
extractivism and in opposition to spectacular,
pathos-ridden representations of chaos produced largely for foreign consumption.
Built into the After Schengen images is also
a distinct sense of the absurd. The photographs were taken on a hilltop overlooking
a 10,000-hectare nature preserve, Parc de la
vallée de la N’Sele, founded in 2018 by the
government of then-president Joseph Kabila.
Populated with imported wildlife, the preserve
is advertised online as a place where visitors
can reconnect with “animals that represent this
part of the world in our collective imaginary,
yet had previously disappeared”6 and as the
ideal location for corporate team-building retreats.7 The marooned jet, as it turns out, is not
an abandoned craft at all, but a retired plane
that was brought piece by piece to the hilltop
and then reconstituted. The plan, closely overseen by First Lady Olive Lembe di Sita, was to
refurbish the jet as a luxury restaurant:
A l’intérieur de cet avion … les visiteurs, coupés
du monde, pourront voyager à leur manière sous
l’osmose d’un déjeuner 5 étoiles en première
classe dans un vol le moins fallacieux qui puisse
exister … A côté sera érigée une tour de contrôle
fictive avec chambre à coucher VIP, une terrasse
panoramique avec baie vitrée offrant une vue
splendide sur le paysage.8
Inside this plane … cut off from the world, visitors will be able to travel in their own way in the
glow of a 5 star meal, in a first class cabin as real
as could be … Nearby, a fictitious control tower
will be erected, complete with VIP bedroom
and panoramic terrace overlooking the splendid
countryside.
The choice of this particular location as the
set for After Schengen is inspired. What reads,
out of context, as a locus of despair—a plane
to be boarded by a would-be stowaway—is
in fact a “first-class cabin” in the making.
The astronaut has alighted in a Disneyesque
pseudo-Congo, intended for use by foreigners
and a tiny local bourgeoisie, as witness an advertisement on the business-oriented website
Congo Autrement (“Congo Otherwise”) that
features pictures of the park alongside a spot
for Kinshasa’s most expensive hotel, Fleuve
Congo, together with the website’s mission
statement—“enhancing Congo’s oft-tarnished
image”—and the logo for Congo Airways,
accompanied by the slogan “le plaisir de
voyager” (“the pleasure of travel”).9 Adding to
the absurdity of the set-up is a precedent for
the first lady’s ersatz deluxe jet project (now
stalled as her husband is no longer in power)
and for the animal preserve it overlooks.
From the mid-1960s to the early 1990s, the
very same Nsele Valley was home to another
wildlife park, complete with imitation Chinese
pagoda and sprawling marble palace built for
then-president Mobutu Sese Seko.
After Schengen responds to the economic
and political systems that undergird such
precedents, projects, and slogans with ambiguity, humor, irony, consternation, and anger.
An undercurrent of tension renders the work
still more complex. A binational team, Michel
Ekeba and Eléonore Hellio are not affected in
the same ways by the European Union’s bunker
politics. Hellio, a citizen of France, can readily
avail herself of the “pleasure of travel”; Ekeba,
because he is Congolese, cannot. Positing an
“after Schengen” is a luxury she can afford; he
has little choice but to look beyond the EU’s
ambit. The violence of a late capitalist world
built on strategies of divide and conquer is
both a subject of the performances and photographs and an inherent condition of their
production.
CHARM(ED)
The second body of work addressed in these
pages specifically focuses on movement in the
face of the will of the “North” to bunkerization.
While it is not concerned with Europe alone—
as we shall see, it addresses the world at large—
it does explicitly take on Frontex, the European
Border and Coast Guard Agency. Schengen is
very much in its sights. The work in question, entitled Gris-gris, meaning “charm” or
“amulet,” is by the Cameroonian and French
installation and performance artist Lamyne M.
His Gris-gris series consists of 111 sculptural
objects, ranging from 9–110 cms (3.5"–43.5")
in size. All are collaborative creations: Conceived to provide protection for persons transiting between Africa and other continents,
the multimedia assemblages were crafted by
spiritual practitioners (in francophone terms,
marabouts) in the artist’s presence and to his
specifications. The joint nature of the project
is underscored by inclusion of the marabouts’
names in the labels accompanying the gris-gris
when they are exhibited.
Each charm has a specific purpose. This
purpose is referenced in the charm’s title and
in an accompanying explanation provided
by the artist—a sentence or a phrase that
states how it is intended to act. Together,
the titles and explanations function as an
inventory of aspirations, a summa of hopes
harbored by women and men pursuing lives
outside the African continent. They range
from the fairly general to the highly specific.
Massassy, produced in Morocco in 2014 by
the artist in concert with a marabout named
Alvatan, provides “comprehensive personal
and property insurance.” Whereas some of
the charms are location specific (intended,
that is, to work in a given country or region),
Massassy provides “worldwide coverage.” The
same is true of M’bappélepé (Fig. 4). Its action,
however, is more targeted: Made in Liberia in
2018 by Lamyne M and marabout Fékomanan,
it ensures “success abroad as a football player.”
Its holder can expect “100% assured stardom”
and aspire to “a Ballon d’or trophy.”10 The
name M’bappélepé references French football
player Kylian Mbappé, star striker for the
Paris Saint-Germain team. Equally precise
in its intended use, though in a significantly
different vein, is Bang-Bang (Lamyne M
and marabout Gekefu, Chad, 2014), which
promises induction into the French Foreign
Legion from anywhere within the European
Union. Access to the EU is facilitated by a
charm collaboratively produced in Libya in
2019 with marabout Alnuur. Titled Aguko, it
offers “anti-Frontex camouflage”—specifically,
it acts to “deflect the gaze of Frontex officers.”
While, as this suggests, the primary scope of
this charm is Europe, its powers of deflection
can “potentially extend to the Mexican border.”
It belongs, as such, to a subgroup within the
Gris-gris series that addresses immigration
to the Americas. Alpharay (Lamyne M and
marabout Modusalmaky, Senegal, 2017)
guarantees “a high level of social success in the
United States.” The difficulties encountered by
those who would settle in (or indeed simply
visit) the United States are counteracted by
Forlamy (Lamyne M and marabout Kunfayakun, Gabon, 2018), which provides “community protection from Donald Trump” (Fig.
5). This same charm “preserves from Viktor
Orbán and all forms of extremism.” Also
offering protection against Orbán and such
far-right actors as Marine Le Pen and Matteo
Salvini is Horban; described in the Gris-gris
inventory as an “anti-facho” device, it was created by the artist and marabout Oguun (Congo
Brazzaville, 2018).
The Gris-gris corpus provides assistance as
well to persons worried about falling prey to
other forms of “extremism”; hence Pakarapackcha (a collaboration with marabout Kan Kan
Game, Kenya 2014), aimed at safeguarding
its holder from “radicalization” at the hands
of pro-ISIS actors. The Gris-gris series takes
into account the aspirations both of persons
first arriving abroad—“primo-arrivants”—and
of those who have made their home overseas
for two and three generations. For the former,
in quest of family reunification in France or
Belgium, with marabout Touré (Mali, 2019),
Lamyne M created Ittoto; for the latter, he
developed Ewossu (a collaboration with Congolese marabout Kofu, 2015), meant to endow
its possessor, a third-generation inhabitant
of Russia, with an ability to see the otherwise
invisible.
Several of the charms are identified as “wifi
sensitive”: updatable, or rechargeable, at a distance by their marabout cocreators in response
to the changing needs of those who would
deploy them in their quest for lives abroad.
4 Lamyne M
Collaboration with marabout Fékomanan, Liberia
M’bappélepé (ensures football stardom and Ballon
d’Or trophy)
Gris-gris series (2018)
Plastic soccer cleats, goat horns, cow leather,
miniature perfume bottles, secret interior; 36 cm x
22.5 cm x 8 cm
Photo: © Lamyne M and Axis Gallery
VOL. 53, NO. 3 AUTUMN 2020 african arts
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/afar_a_00532 by guest on 24 April 2021
|5
5 Lamyne M
Collaboration with marabout
Kunfayakun, Gabon
Forlamy (for community protection
against Trump, Orbán, and other
extremist leaders worldwide)
Gris-gris series (2018)
Reptile skin (Nile monitor), plastic
male figurine, data cable hardware,
synthetic thread, cat claw, secret interior; 47 cm x 11 cm x 13 cm
Photo: © Lamyne M and Axis Gallery
6 Lamyne M
Collaboration with marabout Touré,
Mali
Ittoto (ensures family reunification
for first-time arrivals to France or
Belgium)
Gris-gris series (2017)
Metal curio replica of Eiffel Tower, goat
hide and goat horn, secret interior; 32
cm x 20 cm x 15 cm
Private collection
Photo: © Lamyne M and Axis Gallery
The gris-gris are made of a wide variety of
materials. A short list includes: textile and
thread; buttons, shells, coins; leather and skin
of multiple kinds (bull and cow, buffalo, sheep,
mountain goat, antelope, camel, snake, iguana);
animal parts (antelope and gazelle horns, cat
and vulture claws, hyena femurs, dried crocodile heads, eagle skulls, bird beaks and feathers)
and, on occasion, whole animals (in two
instances, preserved chameleons); factory-made
objects (a compass, a flashlight, forks, glass
vials, miniature Eiffel Towers, in one case a
pair of tennis shoes, in another a beacon lamp
of the type used by police); pop culture items
(plastic soldier figurines, Ken doll limbs); USB
drives allowing the charms to be plugged into
a computer (see Fig. 5); inks of various sorts,
some in the form of Islamic script or geometric
designs visible on the surface of a given object,
others invisible because diluted in water and
trickled onto the charm … For each object, the
artist provides a complete list of constituent
elements. In several instances, this list includes
the mention of a “secret interior.”
That indication concerns not only the
viewer, who is pointedly denied the relevant
information, but also the artist: Lamyne M
does not know what the charms in question
contain. Only the marabouts possess this
intelligence. That this is the case is fundamental to an understanding of the Gris-gris series.
Ludic though they may appear on the surface
(a point I return to shortly), the 111 charms
are also—indeed, perhaps first and foremost—
power objects. In Francophone terms, they
are chargés: loaded, or spiritually endowed.
In conversation, Lamyne M makes this quite
clear: these are efficacious objects. Put simply,
they are the real thing.
6
|
Their efficacy, however, is not a matter of
the spirit alone. Aesthetics are a key driver of
potency here as well. Lamyne M unequivocally
conceives of the Gris-gris series as a work of
art. In whole and in terms of its constituent
parts, he intends it to be appreciated for its
form and for its tactility—for what it can do to
the senses—as much as for the material impact
it is meant to have on individual lives and
trajectories. He leverages affect and effect in
equal measure. Leveraged as well is humor: A
model Eiffel Tower teeters on furry feet made
of tiny animal tusks (Fig. 6); an array of goat
horns fan out from a pair of running shoes,
yielding a cross between futuristic football
cleats and booster rockets for scaling skyscrapers (see Fig. 4)11; plastic limbs pop forth
from an iguana skin bundle, akin to a Mattel
figure gone rogue (see Fig. 5) … This playful
element merges with the stinging critique of
Fortress Europe and North America built into
the explanations accompanying the charms.
Together, the political broadside embedded in
the explanations, the spiritual and the aesthetic
charge of the objects, and the whimsy they
evidence give rise to one of the more powerful
statements of the moment on the Euro-American immigration discourse.
It is notable that Lamyne M nowhere
indicates whether the charms are to be used
by people departing for economic reasons or
by individuals or families seeking to escape
political turmoil. A mainstay of the “migratory crisis” discourse, in which the figure of
the “economic migrant” is brandished as a
bogeyman, such distinctions are evacuated
here. The Gris-gris series takes as its starting point that intercontinental movement,
african arts AUTUMN 2020 VOL. 53, NO. 3
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/afar_a_00532 by guest on 24 April 2021
whatever its motivations, is an unequivocal
right. The charms are an expression of this and
an instrument of agency, deployed by and for
those who would avail themselves of a freedom
they are denied.
CODA
Neither as an emotion nor as an intended
mode of persuasion is pathos present in the
bodies of work addressed in these pages. In its
stead, After Schengen and Gris-gris foreground
the will and the capacity of individuals to act.
This is not to say that they equate agency with
outcome, determination with concomitant
effect. The critique of late-capitalist brutalism
(Mbembe 2020) that undergirds both projects
goes hand in hand with recognition of the fact
that room to maneuver is constrained. Here,
movement, I have sought to show, is understood not as an aspiration for which one seeks
consent, but as a right to be exercised; that this
right will be curtailed by all means necessary
is equally understood. The Kongo Astronauts’
performances and photographs and Lamyne
M’s objets chargés manifest this tension. If
tension is the state of being stretched tight,
however, it is also the act of applying force to
something in order to stretch and, potentially,
to rupture it. After Schengen and Gris-gris posit
the former, imposed by a violent world order,
as a condition to be combatted and the latter
as a means of doing battle, for use by those
whom this order would condemn to stasis. The
works simultaneously embody a state of brutal
tension—the lived experience of movement
radically curtailed—and a force arrayed against
the system that powers this tension: the force
of movement itself. In this dual stance lies
their power.
Notes
What follows could not have been written without the
guidance and generosity of the artists whose practices it
addresses: Eléonore Hellio and Michel Ekeba, cofounders
of the Kongo Astronauts collective, and Lamyne M. I
am deeply grateful to them. Many thanks too to Sarah
Fila-Bakabadio and Barton Legum for their attentive
reading of these pages and to Axis Gallery for its kind help
in accessing both images of and key information about
Lamyne M’s work.
1 There are, of course, also conservative sources that
disagree. See, notably, Smith 2019. For a pointed critique
of Smith, see Héran 2018a and 2018b.
2 A fine example of such doublespeak can be found
on president Emmanuel Macron’s Twitter feed. “Nous
parlons de femmes et d’hommes qui continuent à
mourir,” the French president states. “Face à ce défi,
notre réponse doit être structurée et solidaire … Il faut
avoir de la détermination, de l’efficacité et de l’humanité.
L’humanité sans efficacité, ce sont de belles paroles.
L’efficacité sans l’humanité, c’est de l’injustice” (“We are
talking about women and men who are continually
dying. Faced with this challenge, we must respond
with structure and solidarity … We must be methodical, effective and humane. Humanity without efficacy
amounts to flowery speech. Efficacy without humanity
is injustice.”) https://twitter.com/emmanuelmacron/
status/951436152262877184
3 Here and throughout this brief text, I use the word
“immigration” in explicit reference to political and
media discourse. I otherwise try to avoid it because, in
current parlance generally and in France in particular,
it is both imprecise and slippery. A cursory overview of
mainstream sources seeking to define the term for Francophone lay audiences underscores this state of affairs.
The 1988 edition of Dictionnaire Petit Robert offers the
following definition: “Immigration designates the entry
into a country of nonautochtonous persons intending
to settle there, usually with a view to finding employment.” Relying as it does on terms that are themselves
slippery—“autochtonous” (a deeply fraught, politically
loaded adjective, as Peter Geschiere has shown [2009]);
“settle” (a verb that does not differentiate between
permanence or temporariness, this a problem given the
Oxford English Dictionary’s online identification of immigration as “the process of coming to live permanently
in a country that is not your own”)—this definition,
one might reasonably expect, would have fallen into
disuse. But in fact, in its 2020 online version, Larousse,
France’s other go-to dictionary, provides a very similar
definition: “Settlement in a country of an individual or
a group of individuals originating in another country.
(The most common motivation for immigration is the
quest for employment and a better quality of life).” As
a synonym, the dictionary lists “migration,” which it
defines as “the voluntary movement of individuals or
populations from one country or region to another for
economic, political, or cultural reasons.” Self-evidently,
the two definitions do not match: One is much broader
than the other. As for the introduction of the term “voluntary,” this poses a host of questions. Are persons fleeing war zones and who have not yet obtained (or have
been denied) refugee status engaged in a process of “voluntary movement?” Do people leaving home because
they cannot feed their families do so “voluntarily?”
Insofar as, according to the United Nations, there exists
no formal legal definition of the term “international
migrant” (https://refugeesmigrants.un.org/definitions),
what is the status of the Larousse definition? Multiple
print and online sources relate the words “immigrant”
and “migrant” to “refugee” (for which a legal definition
exists) and “exile” (for which there is no such thing).
In daily usage, these terms and others still (“clandestin,” “sans-papiers,” “demandeur d’asile,” “déplacé”) are
conflated—how, precisely, depending for the most part
on the speaker’s political stance.
To the terms “immigration” and “immigrant,” I prefer
that of “exile.” In this, I follow the lead of scholars
Alexandra Galitzine-Loumpet (2016) and Alexis Nouss
(2015). Both argue for a paradigm shift that replaces
the lexicon on migration with an approach founded on
notions of exile, the exilic, and “exiliance.” Highlighting lived experience over disembodied categories,
subjectivity over (often situational) legal and political
frameworks, agency over and in the face of arbitrarily
imposed administrative labels, these notions, they hold,
provide essential analytical and ethical tools to address
the movement of people as a foundational condition of
our twenty-first century world.
4 https://kongoastronauts.wordpress.com
5 The Kongo Astronauts explicitly point to Sun Ra
as an influence or, to quote Hellio, an “ancestor.” Early
in their creative partnership, Hellio introduced Ekeba
to the Arkestra and, more broadly, to Afrofuturist
imaginaries and art forms. With him, she learned about
Congocentric takes on the possibilities of travel to the
stars, notably Mobutu’s aborted plans to launch a Zaïrois
space exploration program in the 1970s. These joint
discoveries, in turn, have led the duo to collaborate with
artists and thinkers, both in Congo and abroad, for
whom space is the place. In Kinshasa, they work with
Bienvenu Nanga and Danniel Toya, two artists of different
generations, both of whom are known for the elaborate,
life-sized robots/cyborgs they create, with Céline Banza,
a musician who, in Prédic(a)tion, a recent film by the
Kongo Astronauts, plays a cosmonaut lost in the heavens,
and with the musician/composer/poet/inventor Bebson
Elemba (a.k.a. Bebson de la Rue), whose “tele-transport
devices” and “interstellar environments” (Malaquais 2020:
20) make regular appearances in the collective’s projects.
(Elemba and Toya are such frequent collaborators that
Ekeba and Hellio think of them as “copilots.”) Outside
DRC, the collective is increasingly drawing attention
from cultural actors interested in space as a frontier for
thinking through the possibilities of life beyond our
damaged planet. Among these actors are the Chimurenga
platform’s Pan-African Space Station (PASS), founded
by Ntone Edjabe; MIDBO, a Bogotá-based film festival
whose 2018 edition was held, in part, in a giant telescope;
and, most recently, Sidération, a festival held in Paris by
Observatoire de l’Espace (“Space Observatory”), an arm
of France’s National Center for Space Studies (Centre
National d’Etudes Spatiales).
6 https://www.congo-autrement.com/page/rdc-tourisme-2/tourisme-kinshasa-le-parc-de-la-vallee-de-la-nsele.html
7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6ngARr2nCc
8 https://www.congo-autrement.com/page/rdc-tourisme-2/tourisme-kinshasa-le-parc-de-la-vallee-de-la-nsele.html
9 https://www.congo-autrement.com/page/rdc-tourisme-2/tourisme-kinshasa-le-parc-de-la-vallee-de-la-nsele.html
10 The Ballon d’or is coveted trophy awarded by the
French sports magazine France Football, which covers
football news from around the world.
11 Were a second volume of Reynaldo Anderson’s and
John Jennings’ brilliant Afrofuturist Cosmic Underground
Grimoire of Black Speculative Discontent (2018) to be
published, the resulting gris-gris would find pride of
place therein. Indeed, while Lamyne M does not think of
himself as an Afrofuturist artist, key notions he explores
intersect with Afrofuturist discourses. Consider the inclusion of USB keys in several of the charms, as a means (we
have seen) to plug into the world wide web for renewed
activation. These devices promise unfettered movement
not only across physical barriers, but past the digital
divide as well—the latter a subject explored by many an
author at work in the Afrofuturist literary genre. (A very
recent example is provided by Cameroonian essayist
Lionel Manga, whose short story “Are You Experienced?”
(2020) is an homage to the Kongo Astronauts.) In broader
terms, the Gris-gris series’ focus on movement by African
women, men and children in the face of a “North”-propelled political and economic order determined to stymie
their freedom powerfully resonates with Afrofuturist
themes and ideals. Octavia Butler, one suspects, would
have been a fan—as she would likely have been of the
Kongo Astronauts as well.
References cited
Albis, Hippolyte, Ekrame Boubtane, and Dramane
Coulibaly. 2018. “Macroeconomic Evidence Suggests
that Asylum Seekers Are not a ‘Burden’ for Western
European Countries.” Science Advances 4: 6.
Anderson, Reynaldo, and John Jennings. 2018. Cosmic
Underground: A Grimoire of Black Speculative Discontent. San Francisco, CA: Cedar Groove.
Beauchemin, Cris, and Mathieu Ichou (eds.). 2016. Audelà de la crise des migrants. Décentrer le regard. Paris:
Karthala.
Galitzine-Loumpet, Alexandra. 2016. “Habiter l’exil,
le corps, la situation, la place.” In Samuel Lequette and
Delphine Le Vergos (eds.), Décamper. De Lampedusa à
Calais, pp. 116–29. Paris: La Découverte.
Geschiere, Peter. 2009. The Perils of Belonging: Autochtony, Citizenship, and Exclusion in Africa and Europe.
Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Giugliano, Ferdinando. 2019. “Immigrants Will Pay for
Your Old Age.” Bloomberg Opinion, February 7. https://
www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-07-02/
more-immigrants-would-help-solve-europe-s-demographic-time-bomb
Goldin, Ian, Andrew Pitt, Benjamin Nabarro, and
Kathleen Boyle. 2018. “Migration and the Economy:
Economic Realities, Social Impacts & Political Choices.”
CITI GPS: Global Perspectives & Solutions.
Goolsbee, Austan. 2019. “Sharp Cuts in Immigration
Threaten U.S. Economy and Innovation.” New York
Times, September 13, Section BU, p. 4.
Héran, François. 2018a. “L’Europe et le spectre des
migrations subsahariennes.” Population et Sociétés 558.
Héran, François. 2018b. “Comment se fabrique un
oracle.” La Vie des idées. https://laviedesidees.fr/migrations-afrique-prejuge-stephen_smith-oracle.
International Organization for Migration (IOM). 2020.
World Migration Report 2020.
Kenny, Charles. 2019. “The Real Immigration Crisis:
The Problem Is not too Many, but too Few.” Foreign
Affairs, November 11. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/
articles/2019-11-11/real-immigration-crisis
Malaquais, Dominique. 2018. “On the Urban Condition
at the Edge of the 21st Century: Time and Space in
Question.” Social Dynamics 44 (3): 425–37.
Malaquais, Dominique. 2020. “Kongo Astronauts:
collectif embarqué.” Multitudes 77: 20–26.
Manga, Lionel. 2020. “Are You Experienced?” Multitudes
77: 33–35.
Mbembe, Achille. 2020. Brutalisme. Paris: La Découverte.
Mosse, Richard. 2011. Infra. New York City: Aperture
Foundation.
Nouss, Alexis. 2015. La condition de l’exilé. Paris: Éditions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme.
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). 2014. Migration Policy Debates, May.
Smith, Stephen. 2019. The Scramble for Europe: Young
Africa on Its Way to the Old Continent. Cambridge:
Polity. Originally published in French, 2018.
VOL. 53, NO. 3 AUTUMN 2020 african arts
Downloaded from http://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/afar_a_00532 by guest on 24 April 2021
|7