Join us for an event during Congo in Harlem Week featuring Moynihan Center Leader-in-Residence Dr. Tatiana Carayannis and Dr. José Mvuezolo Bazonzi. They will present a talk followed by an exhibition showcasing 20 powerful photographs of charcoal inscriptions left by combatants at Gbadolité Airport during the Congo Wars. This exhibition explores personal experiences and the enduring impact of war, power, and memory in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Years of violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have shaped the country’s landscapes, leaving behind destruction but also revealing visual traces of the past. These traces provide both insights into the lives of the former combatants and visual representations of the conflict itself. This photography exhibition explores inscriptions left by combatants during the First and Second Congo Wars at Gbadolite Airport, once a symbol of President Mobutu’s luxury and power in then-Zaire. Between 1995 and 1999, successive and often opposing state armies and rebel groups occupied the airport, leaving behind charcoal inscriptions — names, drawings, religious texts, military boasts, and philosophical quotes — on its walls.

The exhibition offers insights into the soldiers’ experiences, desires, and attempts to memorialize their presence in combat zones. The deeply personal inscriptions speak to individual experiences and testify to war, power, subversion, and memory. Written in multiple languages including French, Lingala, English, Swahili, and Arabic, the etchings reflect the diverse groups involved — Congolese, Ugandan, Rwandan, Chadian, and more. Although the 1999 Lusaka Ceasefire Agreement officially ended the war, 25 years later, the legacies of violence remain deeply etched in Congolese landscapes and lives, showing the human elements — and human toll — of war.

Time: 5:00-6:30 pm EDT

Free!

Registration