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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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'Visualizing the Congo river'
| Panel |
33. Visualizing Africa, from there to here, between now and then.
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| Paper ID | 789 |
| Author(s) |
Spaas, Lieve
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | The paper examines how the Congo has been visualized in literature, film and photography. Among the authors who have attempted to visualize the Congo-river V.S. Naipaul and Conrad rank high. Whereas Naipaul focuses on the seeing of the river on its natural beauty and on the vegetation it breeds, Conrad's experiences the river as a force that takes him elsewhere, 'in another existence perhaps'. A similar distinction occurs between Thierry Michel's exhibition of photographs taken in the course of making the film (Kinshasa 2005) and his film Congo River: Beyond Darkness (2005). The still images of the flowing river crystallize in the mind of the spectators, holding them ensnared in pure visual pleasure. The film, however, setting out from H.M. Stanley's mission to find Livingstone in Central Africa (journey unrelated to the Congo river), takes the viewers to places and people, near the river or on the river, offering fragments of the Congo's history and its present-day struggle for survival. The river shows an arduous journey, partly historical, partly anthropological, leaving the spectators to wonder how these chance encounters, that happen to be near the river, are actually related to the river. The journey on the river becomes a narrative device for linking through contiguity events, places and people. |
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