Chimurenga returned to Paris for a 5-day intervention and installation at La Colonie we installed a live radio station and a research library, and hosted talks, screenings and performances that asked ‘Who Killed Kabila?’, as the starting point for an in-depth investigation into power, territory and the creative imagination.
The equation was simple: the length of a Congolese president’s reign is proportional to his/her willingness to honour the principle that the resources of the Congo belong to others. Mzee Kabila failed.
Who killed Kabila is no mystery either. It is not A or B or C. But rather A and B and C. All options are both true and necessary – it’s the coming together of all these individuals, groups and circumstances, on one day, within the proliferating course of the history, that does it.
So telling this story isn’t merely be a matter of presenting multiple perspectives but rather of finding a medium able to capture the radical singularity of the event in its totality, including each singular, sometimes fantastical, historical fact, rumour or suspicion.
We’ve heard plenty about the danger of the single story – we want to explore its power. We take inspiration from the Congolese musical imagination, its capacity for innovation and its potential to allow us to think “with the bodily senses, to write with the musicality of one’s own flesh” (Mbembe).
At La Colonie, Chimurenga installed a library that included books, films, and visual material mapping extensive research that investigates history and changing formations of rule and accumulation, space and territory, allegiance, citizenship, and sovereignty, and the African imagination in music and writing.
Each day, the Pan Africa Space Station, broadcast live with a programme of interviews, discussions and performances by collaborators from around the world including musicians, DJs, journalists, writers, political theorists, thinkers and filmmakers. After the event, the sounds and images generated in this process will contribute towards a special edition of our Pan African broadsheet, the Chronic.
Participants included Dominique Malaquais, Parselelo Kantai, Philou Lozoulou, Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor, Barly Baruti, Victor Gama, Lulendo Mvulu, Déo Namujimbo, Luigi Elongui, Maurice Poto, Mengi Massamba, Hugo Mendez, Jihan El-Tahri, Bintou Simpore, Martin Meissonnier, Paulo Inglês, Franck Biyong, Ray Lema, Brice Ahounou, Nadine Fidji, Spilulu, Arnaud Zaitjman, Julie Peghini, Sinzo Aanza, Koba Lubaki, Percy Zvomuya, Boddhi Satva, Abdourahman Waberi, Antoine Vumilia Muhindo, Sam Tshintu & Academia, Trésor Kibangula, Bullit, Kovo NSondé, Rokia Bamba-Mennessier, Emmanuel Nashi, Franck Leibovici, Julien Seroussi, Daniel Kalinaki, Pascale Obolo, Kivu Ruhorahoza, Jacques Goba, Mo Laudi, Michelange Quay.
This edition of the Pan African Space Station POP-UP studio in Paris was developed in collaboration with Centre Pompidou for the inaugural Cosmopolis Bienalle 2017.
