Cell Gallery: Ephemeral Congo New Works by Paul Kilbertus
In August 2015, I spent three weeks in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a country at the other end of the development spectrum from Canada. While Canada is a top 10 country on the Human Development Index, DRC is among the bottom 10.
This difference means that on average, Canadians live an average of 30 years more. There, the state funds almost no health care and education.
Government is essentially a dictatorship characterized by corruption and an ever simmering series of uprisings and mini civil wars using child soldiers. Various civil wars have killed an estimated five million people since the country became independent in 1960.
I have worked with images and objects I brought back since 2015.
Ephemeral Congo reflects how I see the country – life there is ephemeral, with poor access to education, health care, electricity, food, clean water and the basic infrastructure we take for granted. It’s also ephemeral because our awareness of DRC is almost completely blank.
Any news we see lasts no more than a day. Our impressions are based on stereotypes, our story of Africa.
Some works use items I brought back and then used such as money, newspapers and plastic drinking water bags, again ephemeral items.
As any travelogue, my impressions and work are influenced first and foremost by how I see the world – with its lenses, filters and limitations. It is also constructed from what DRC presents to tourists for us to take away, a non-threatening story of their country we can put on display for people here to see.