This section of the project documents the ways in which project participants engaged discursively and visually with the urban spaces of (post)colonial memories in the context of Brussels and London.
Through a 3-day visit to Brussels, several aspects of (post)colonial material representations and legacies were explored. In Brussels, the young people participated in an urban tour of the city’s colonial monuments and a visit to the Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA, Tervuren) a ‘Little Versailles’, dreamt by the Belgian king Leopold II to stage the grandeur of its colonial rule.
‘Diaspora: (Post)colonial Visions’ is also a witness to the struggle of Congolese activists in London, engaged in long-distance transnational politics linking Europe and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Their public presence in the centre of London, at the heart of the ‘global city’ and former imperial capital, suggests the extent to which appropriating urban spaces and reclaiming visibility also serves to reconnect colonial past(s) and postcolonial present(s).
‘THIS IS HOW WE SEE YOU’
Film about the visit to the RMCA Tervuren Museum (Brussels) and (post)colonial representations of Congo/Africa