Darkness apart from a series of
(banana) yellow neon lights

Two large screens face each other
Eight speakers are suspended
four on each side of the aisle
broadcasting sounds and voices
simultaneously or in cascade







An Afro-French-speaking scholar 
comments Heart of Darkness
by Joseph Conrad
(1899)

The book contrasts 
British colonial efficiency 
in partnership with the natives
with the brutality of colonization in Congo
as if there was a good and a bad
colonisation

Another voice reads a passage of the book
celebrating the greatness of 
captains, generals, admirals
facing the sea and its mysteries 
to discover, by moonlight
distant lands

The ceiling with its wooden frame
like the dark holds of a ship
The yellow neon lights
like so many taverns in port towns

A woman talks about her black fellows
with their sweaty bodies
white eyeballs, bones, muscles, energy of movement

Opposite, a man's voice 
shares his memories of Congo 
with its lucrative plantations of normal bananas
palm oil, papayas, plantains
which are not fruits but foods
like cassava 
which he likens to our potatoes

On one of the large screens
black and white videos
Fragments of Brussels' heritage
Saint Michael slaying the dragon
windows where raindrops drip

Another screen
Images of sea and rain
permeated by the stories we've just heard
Our body moving from one voice to another
diffuse sound waves
Acoustic layers while our eyes evolve 
in the melancholy 
of black and white images

Ripening of the minds
ripening of bananas
imported from Congo 
and stored in the sixties
in the building which now houses Argos



Roshan Di Puppo