Sammy Baloji

"Photography came to the Congo, or to Africa in general, through colonial expeditions and played a major role in painting this image of the 'other,' of the savage or the foreigner... I ask myself: How can I, as an African or Congolese, create a new narrative with this very medium?" (Sammy Baloji)

Sammy Baloji grew up in the Katanga Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a region marked by the exploitation of people and nature, particularly through mining. He uses photo archives to question this history and document the complex legacy of colonialism. In photographs, films, installations, and archival montages, the artist highlights how colonial regimes continue to shape landscapes and imaginary worlds. Materiality plays a crucial role in this exploration: copper, uranium, botanical species, and industrial remains repeatedly appear in his work as carriers of transnational stories that connect local extraction sites with global cycles of consumption and and violence. The archive – a central element in Baloji's work – is positioned as an instrument of power that both creates and erases history. By juxtaposing colonial-era archival documents, photographs, and scientific images with contemporary material, he uncovers the visual and administrative regimes that made the Congo legible for imperial rule.

In the exhibition at the Secession, his works open up a charged dialogue between the ornamental language of the building and the stories of exploitation that have entered into its material and formal vocabulary. Instead of treating architecture as a neutral framework, it is understood as a space where cultural production and colonial economic structures intersect.