Page 19 - Situated_Making_Catalogue

Artist Statement

The Remaindering is a book work that explores man- These objects of study became my first academic book
made constructions that no longer function along the called, Congo Style: From Belgian Art nouveau to African
lines that their makers originally intended. Dislocated Independence (Michigan University Press, forthcoming).
architectural parts, fragments of sculptures, never- The awkward objects that did not make it into the official text
realized plans, colonial remains and unfinished are what I have dubbed “remainders.” Always on their way
infrastructural elements are represented in an ecosystem to becoming something else and eluding finite categories,
within the design, drawings and texts of the artist book. the remainders did not fit into my wordy critical arguments
In addition to composing the text and image, I also except as anecdotes. Yet they lingered in my imagination as
designed the book to be an unusual object, in its own objects and forms that existed within their own parameters.
right. The Remaindering brings these processes, and the
The conceptual framework of The Remaindering foregrounding of ‘ephemera from the field’ center stage.
is taken from the idea of drawing attention to the Taking a perspective from the postcolonial African
marginalia at the side of formalized academic research. city of Kinshasa, the narrative of each remainder reflects
I conceived of the artwork, while conducting research on what is left of colonial relations that helped shape
about the Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo), urban space. The remaindering process I describe through
from a postcolonial perspective. This research started layering image and text relates to how constructions that
in Brussels with the Art Nouveau movement and ended no longer participate in the everyday city have weathered
with Kinshasa’s post-independence modernism. I and taken on a life of their own. Bound by my personal
followed a trail of fantastical, bizarre and ambitious research narrative and the qualities of the various
buildings, artworks and exhibition installations, sprawling mediums employed, The Remaindering gives awkward,
across the late 19th and 20th centuries as well as two stubborn objects center stage. The images that echo and
continents. Each construction, or object, was built by accumulate across the publication are outlines of drawings,
the regimes of King Leopold II’s Congo Colony (1885- plans and photographs of the remainders I discuss. I utilize
1908) and Mobutu Sese Seko’s Second Republic (1965- transparencies, silhouettes, and shadows to accentuate the The Remaindering.
Length 120mm / height 200mm / width 10mm.
1997) which, in different ways, have gained notoriety. ambiguous and haunting qualities I perceive in them. Book work.
2022.

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