Expolio

Although the causes of war and its prolongation are multiple and complex, wealth and who controls it play a direct role in the origin and evolution of almost every conflict.

The exploitation of coltan in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or of oil in Nigeria has brought no improvement to the lives of the local population.

On the contrary, the looting of these resources by local actors and, above all, international ones, together with the corruption of the authorities, has fuelled a violence that strikes and further impoverishes the people — especially women.

In this exhibition, structured in three main sections, the author offers a perspective that, far from seeking false balance, leads the viewer through the everyday landscape of devastation.

To do so, she constructs a visual narrative that explores both the causes of violence and its consequences on life in all its dimensions.

The perspective of women, which forms the third section of the exhibition, takes on special significance because, as Judith Prat says, “the world cannot be told without the voices of half the people who inhabit it.” Through 60 powerful and unadorned photographs, the viewer is taken on a journey to the coltan mines in the east of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and to the Niger Delta, one of the richest oil regions on the planet and one of the most polluted by oil spills.

The exhibition also depicts the violence unleashed by Boko Haram in northeastern Nigeria, and the daily reality of the long-standing conflict that plagues the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Finally, the viewer will be confronted by the unwavering gaze of women who have survived violence that was specifically designed to target and destroy them. These women reject the role of victim that their aggressors had assigned to them and instead assert themselves as drivers of change and future.

Form and content, powerful photographs and discourse, merge in this exhibition to deliver a clear and undistorted message. It becomes a vital testimony, not only to the violence shown, but also to the calculated silences that persist in an era paradoxically marked by unprecedented access to information.