Sammy Baloji’s work in the exhibition is an ongoing research project on the cultural, architectural and industrial heritage of the Katanga region in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), an endeavour which questions the impact of Belgian colonisation. The research comprising Hunting & Collecting was conducted in the summer of 2014 and centres around a historic photography album compiled by Belgian trade unionist and politician Henry Pauwels (1890-1946). The album includes images of hunting scenes, hunting trophies and landscapes with signs of early industrialisation that date back to his 1911-1913 expedition to what was then the colonial Belgian Congo. Baloji reinterprets these images through photomontages, layering them with his own recent photographs from the same sites, as well as others taken by Chrispin Mvano – a journalist from North Kivu, a war-ravaged province in the DRC – who documents the devastation of war in eastern Congo. 

The installation also includes a monumental steel structure reminiscent of natural history museum dioramas, a series of archival photographs with images and watercolours documenting the expedition by taxidermist Carl Akeley (1864-1926) to the Belgian Congo, as well as a list of NGOs that operate in the Kivu region, questioning their true impact. This juxtaposition highlights the persistent exploitation of the region’s land, people, animals and resources.