Projet d’attentat contre l'image (Acte 3)

2017 - Installation (Installation)

Dimensions variable

Sinzo Aanza

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Projet d’attentat contre l’image? (Acte 3) by Sinzo Aanza brings together literature and objects in their varied forms. This project stems from the artist’s interest in the syncretism that emerged after Congo’s independence in 1960. In the work, the artist examines the culture and national identity of the Congo with regard to religion and images of colonial propaganda. The installation presents disparate cultural objects placed on the wall in a serpentine curve, interspersing Congolese masks and Bibles. These anthropological objects, bound by a chain, oscillate between tradition and colonization. In a typical literary reference, Aanza describes the work as “a poem of doubt and inconstancy” that underscores a particular ambivalence considered characteristic of the Congo. Projet d’attentat contre l’image? bridges the gap between the necessities of life in the here and now and the possibility of the Kingdom of Heaven—a utopian image promised by the Catholic and Protestant colonial missions, on the one hand; and the conflict between the construction of a national identity and individual identities, on the other.

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Sinzo Aanza is a visual artist, poet, and playwright. Working predominantly in plastics and poetics, Aanza’s work considers the political situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Often irreverent, his work engages with topics such as the exploitation of natural resources, the representation of national identities, and the construction of the image of the Congo as a nation, and the investors and foreigners that profit from that image. The artist questions the colonial legacies and post-independence realities of the Congo, as well as the drift between these subjects in both his visual and literary works. Aanza is also the director of the second edition of the Yango Biennale held in Kinshasa in 2022.

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Colors:

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• literature.n.01
• politics.n.01
• identity.n.01
• culture.n.01
• religion.n.01