In Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, there are quite a few artists and street performers, some of them reunited in the collective Ndaku Ya La Vie Est Belle, employing the most disparate materials to create very unique costumes that they use for performances in the streets of the city.
Photographs of these costumes from a distance call to mind Nick Cave's soundsuits, they are powerful and visual incarnations of bizarre dreams and nightmares, complex and multi-layered, at times calling to mind the attires of African ceremonial rites. Some of these costumes also make you think about folk traditions hinting at transformations and regenerations, like the Scottish Burry Man in South Queensferry.
Yet look closer at these costumes and you will realise that they tell very different stories: these artists use indeed waste materials to highlight environmental issues, but some of the elements used for their costumes are also a way to comment about social and political problems.
For a few years now Floryan Sinanduku has for example been making costumes with medicines blisters to make a statement about the state of the local healthcare system. A few years ago, before COVID-19 arrived, making the divide between rich and poor countries even more marked, he came up with a costume entirely made with syringes.
While until a few years ago seeing such a costume may have prompted us to think about illnesses in general, now the attire has assumed a new power, hinting at vaccines and also reminding us that, while in some countries we are talking about giving people a third dose of vaccine against Coronavirus, poorer countries are being left behind with millions of people who still haven't received not even one dose.
Mbuyi Tickson's costume made instead with condoms looks at access to condoms in Africa and the existing gap between availability and need.
The assorted limbs of plastic dolls forming the intricate costume donned by Shaka Fumu Kabaka are instead not a reference to childhood, but to the victims of the Six-Day War (June 2000), a series of armed confrontations between Ugandan and Rwandan forces around the city of Kisangani, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The precursor of this trend for costumes made with recycled materials, is Eddy Ekete who first created a costume made with drink cans in the early 2010s to highlight the problem of garbage accumulating in the city.
More artists followed his example: Kilomboshi Lukumbi Hénock, also known as Pape Noire, lives in an area of the city heavily polluted by solvents, factory fumes, and diesel from generators, and who focuses on denouncing environmental damage with his costumes made with plastic car parts; Sarah Ndele who made a costume covered with a vast array of plastic cups, pots and bottles and Falone Mambu, whose electric cable wire costume hints at daily power cuts.
The list of artists and performers creating these costumes is therefore long, and also includes Patrick Kitete's mirror sapeur costume, inviting the Congolese to pick up the pieces of their identity shattered by the West and stand proud, and Junior Longalonga who creates characters rather than just costumes, like his Robot Covid-19. This character wears a costume covered in chicken feathers and urges the population to respect social barriers, while his costume made with the inner tubes of tires is a tribute to the Congolese who suffered in the rubber farms for twenty-three years (1885-1908) when the Congo was the personal possession of Leopold II, King of Belgium.
Many of these artists will take part in Kinshasa's streets for KinAct festival, but let's hope that, at some point, these wearable sculptures will travel around the world. Their rag-and-bone man aesthetic combined with urban craftsmanship and performance art maybe not be filed under fashion or Haute Couture, but these costumes are characterised by a strong visual and audio-tactile power through which the wearer tackles different issues and builds very personal narratives, reminding us of the damages caused by rich countries on Africa, but also highlighting the creativity, vitality and energy of African artists.
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