Sammy Baloji | Essay on Urban Planning

BACK TO ARTIST

ARTIST STATEMENT

Sammy  Baloji’s  aerial views of Lubumbashi  reveal  the historical colonial  separation of  the living areas of Europeans and natives  for “public health” reasons and  record the current chaotic extensions  that developed in Lubumbashi  in  and around this “sanitary cordon”.  Baloji’s juxtaposed photographs  of  mounted flies and mosquitoes are from the etymology  collection of theNational Museum of Lubumbashi, many collected  between 1920 and 1950 in  Katanga Province. Mounted at 90 degrees to this patchwork of landscape and etymological obsession is the impetus for the creation of this work, an archival postcard that Baloji found of two men framing a collection of flies and mosquitos they had collected in return for their daily rations.