The untitled cover image and the image on the following page, How My Grandfather Survived (2015) by Cedrick Tamasala, as well as the conditions that gave rise to their display, perfectly illustrate the concerns and tensions of the essays in this collection, linking all of them together in a global network.
Tamasala’s works were part of a 2017 exhibition at the SculptureCenter in Long Island City, New York. The exhibit enacted the entangled and fraught relationships that characterize the postplantation by displaying the engagement of a group of artists with their environment and materials, slavery and colonialism, and the circulation of commodities as art and activism. Produced by the Cercle d’Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise (Congolese Plantation Workers Art League)—a laborers’ collective that includes Michel Ekeba, Eléonore Hellio, Mathieu Kilapi Kasiama, Mananga Kibuila, Mbuku Kimpala, Thomas Leba, Mega Mingeidi, in addition to Tamasala—the works contribute to the larger vision...
