Kwanga is Congolese bread made of manioc. Kwanga (“life” or “bread” in the Kikongo   language) refers to the African and European concepts of the daily bread, a nutritious staple consumed daily by the majority of a country’s population. Kwanga has the characteristics of  white Congolese rubber. Like liquids, kwanga bars can be transformed into any shape. Like solids, they are resilient, they can always return to their original shape. The consumption of   the bars liquifies your cultural, national and gender identity, making it fluid, the original  state of all humans being. Kwanga is the fuel that powers the reconstruction of an Afropean physical and metaphysical reality that will reconnect us with the Afropean origins of   Europeans and Africans. Kwanga bars are a space of correlation between African and European cultural traditions. Rubber—once a symbol of colonial domination—becomes a   symbol of power. 

​

Afropean sacred clowns have a fluid identity. Their bodies are made of Kwanga. They consume Kwanga bars to maintain their bodies and minds in a liquid state.

​

During their  masquerades they contort their bodies (shape shifting) into thousands of    positions/postures.  Each position/posture expresses a single unique identity, reflection on  or critique of  identity and the human condition. Their masquerade represents  identity in    constant development, in a liquid state, a fluid identity.  Through their contortions and critical reflection sacred clowns liquify reality and manipulate physical and metaphysical matter to redefine reality. 

​

Kwanga bars have the shape of one of the three Afropean palaces that were be built in the  Belgian capital of Brussels in Lion phase 2 Act II. Their shapes refer to Congolese and Belgian ancient royal thumbs, portals or vehicles to another state/form/concept of existence. The palaces were  used as spaces of transformation/communion where the population will be transformed  into Afropeans.   

​

By consuming Kwanga the human body becomes the portal or vehicle to another  state/form/concept of existence or reality. 

​

SHOWS

​

The Kwanga bars series is being exhibited for the first time at Latitudes Art Fair 2020. 

This installation will be exhibited from April to December 2021 at the Europe exhibition at  the Royal Museum for Central Afrika in Belgium, at Mucem in Marseille, France, and at  Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, Portugal. From September 2021 it will be part of  a large exhibition on my work at the deSingel Centre of Arts in Antwerp, Belgium, where my  new performance SPIRIT CAPITAL on fluid cultural, national and gender identity will be  presented.