‘Refuge’ is a reflexion on nostalgia, a reflexion on one’s search of belonging in their lived reality.
I wanted to capture moments that allowed me to situate myself, no matter the place. In 2021, I started this work in Senegal, and for 3 years different places led me back to Kinshasa, the place I called home when I was 11 years old.
I left Congo by the end of the 90’s and from my arrival in Belgium, I fed into the feeling that my life would have been better if I hadn’t fled. I think that for a lot of people who left their home for survival, it can be difficult to reconcile this ‘better life’ that is offered with the destiny we ‘escaped’.
For twenty years now I have been able to go back once a year to see family.
Despite everything, Congo is still the place where a part of me resides, the only place where I can stare at ghosts of the past that still haunt us today.
In November 2025 this work was presented for the first time as a solo exhibition during an event hosted by Friends Of Friends At Home (FOFAH). The prints are available for sale. Feel free to send me an EMAIL or a DM for more information.
