Paper short abstract:

This paper investigates the work of Kinshasa-based artist collective Kongo Astronauts and their contemporary response to the ongoing impact of the Jet Age and the Space Age on people and land in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Paper long abstract:

Both the Jet Age and the Space Race significantly impacted the present-day Democratic Republic of the Congo, as Congolese uranium and cobalt were critical elements in the advancement of air and spacecraft engines, and remain so today. This paper considers the work of the Kinshasa-based artist collective Kongo Astronauts and their contemporary response to the ongoing impact of these periods on people and land in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Kongo Astronauts work across disciplines, media, political borders, restrictive artistic and cultural boundaries, and temporal thresholds to reimagine our shared futures and elicit thoughts of refusal and renewal. By remixing and repurposing quotidian objects and words, Kongo Astronauts give life to new visual elements and linguistic creations that are fantastical in their presentation while remaining grounded in the reality of life in Kinshasa.

Through a detailed visual analysis of work from a recent solo exhibition titled Congo Gravitational Waves: A Metadigital and Tantalean Tale and curated by the author, this paper explores how Kongo Astronauts grapple with the lingering effects of the Jet and Space Ages in their communities. The paper examines, in particular, their series After Schengen, which features an astronaut photographed inside several abandoned jumbo jets situated in the sprawling Parc de la Vallée de la Nsele, and one of their "spacewalker" suits constructed using e-waste containing minerals mined in the DRC and used for public performances as a way to raise questions about the crises of late capitalism and climate change.