In the sculpture we see a Congolese woman looking into the distance with aproud expression. A palm tree is growing out of her belly. The tree twists across her body, her chest, her shoulders, as if it is slowly taking over herbody —the distinction between tree and woman is hardly noticeable. Some viewers will be reminded of Gianlorenzo Bernini‘s famous seventeenth–century sculpture of Apollo and Daphne, in which Daphne flees fromApollo and then voluntarily chooses to turn into a laurel tree. This very voluntariness is also an important element for sculptor Athanas Kindendie: he shows that this woman is subject to forces she cannot control herself. For Kindendie, the woman in his sculpture symbolises both the many people forced into slave labour by Western companies in Congo and the land they work, which has been completely exhausted by the monoculture imposed. This palm monoculture, from which only western landowners benefit, takes the people, nature and natural diversity hostage, Kindendie says —the palms impoverish the land, leaving it empty, so that eventually even mankind can no longer live there. Thus, women and palm are going down together.
Plantation Monoculture, 2022 by Athanas Kindendie
African Mahogany
200 x 154 x 101 cm
Ed. 3 + 1 AP
CATPC
CATPC – Cercle d’art des travailleurs de plantation congolaise – is an art cooperative of plantation workers based in Lusanga, D.R.Congo. CATPC was founded in 2014 with renowned environmental activist René Ngongo. Over the past decade, they have reconnected to a history of artistic resistance against the plantation system and developed a practice of getting hundreds of acres of exhausted plantation land with the proceeds of their art. On this land they bring back the forests that were cut down by the plantation companies and develop their ecological and inclusive food garden the “Post-Plantation” with the proceeds of their art.
At the heart of that reclaimed land, they built a museum, the White Cube Lusanga. In 2024, they represented the Netherlands at the Venice Biennale, presenting a dual exhibition in Venice and Lusanga. They also secured the temporary return of the ancestral sculpture Balot to Lusanga for the duration of the Biennale – a powerful act of reconnection between the community and its history of resistance against the plantation system.
Recent solo exhibitions include SculptureCenter (New York, 2017), the Dutch pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale (2024), and the Van Abbemuseum (Einhoven, 2024). Other exhibitions include Sydney Biennale (2017), Dig Where You Stand (Ghana, 2022), Diriyah Contemporary Art Biennale (2024).
- Anna Boghiguian
- Candice Breitz
- Marco A. Castillo
- CATPC
- Alice Creischer
- Chto Delat
- Clegg & Guttmann
- Eugenio Dittborn
- Heinrich Dunst
- Anna Ehrenstein
- León Ferrari
- Peter Friedl
- Sophie Gogl
- Barbara Hammer
- Ramon Haze
- Hiwa K
- Hudinilson Jr.
- Simon Lehner
- Renzo Martens
- Chris Martin
- Frédéric Moser & Philippe Schwinger
- Oswald Oberhuber
- Mario Pfeifer
- Dierk Schmidt
- Santiago Sierra
- Michael E. Smith
- Franz Erhard Walther
- Clemens von Wedemeyer
- Tobias Zielony