Cercle d'Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise (CATPC) is a cooperative that develops new economic initiatives through participating in the global art market, profitably producing and selling critically engaged art. Founded near Lusanga in the south of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in 2014, the CATPC is well known for their remarkable sculptures, characterful figures first produced in clay before being cast in chocolate. Manufactured in Amsterdam, the world's largest port for cocoa, the sculptures are a physical manifestation of the exploitation of labour and trade relations.
Read MoreThe CATPC uses profits from sales of these artworks to generate income and buy back land, where experimental, community-owned cocoa and palm oil gardens are established, based on the most advanced agroforestry techniques. By engaging in the capitalist economy in this way, CATPC reclaims the oppressive cycle of the production and consumption of goods. More recently, the cooperative has started to make films, drawings and performative works.
Dutch artist and filmmaker Renzo Martens founded the Institute for Human Activities (IHA) in 2014, a research project that seeks to artistically critique income inequality. The organisation often works collaboratively with CATPC, who together established the Lusanga International Research Centre for Art and Economic Inequality (LIRCAEI), a place for critical thought and dialogue surrounding economic disparity and labour relations.
Martens and CATPC, in collaboration with Belgian-Congolese rapper, MC and hip-hop artist Baloji, present their first collaboration, Untitled, 2018, at the 21st Biennale of Sydney. The video charts an allegorical love story, representative of the fraught relationship between art institutions and the plantation system.
The two lovers featured in the video are shown with their bodies intertwined, joined in a complex and mutually dependant exchange. This footage is interposed with wedding scenes featuring batwa installations - theatrical backdrops against which open air plays and civic education take place in the DRC. Notably, one partner is absent in the wedding scenes, suggesting the disloyalty and double-dealing characteristic of multinationals manipulating labour-power. In the role of master of ceremonies, Baloji, the secular priest, sings before the batwa installations. The video also includes historical footage depicting forced labour on Congolese plantations, as well as speculative scenes imagining the future of Lusanga as a firm contributor to the global creative economy.
Tai Spruyt and Stephanie Berlangieri | Biennale of Sydney Exhibition Team | 2018
