,which means “that which cannot be lifted” in Kinande, language of the Banande
(1) is a project I led during my recent research and creation residency in Kampala. It refers to any object or body that is not supposed to be moved from the place where it is, from the space allocated to it or from the space containing it. But if this is to be done, it must be done according to very precise rites. “Katasumbika” thus acts as a care instruction in that, in the old days, it was used to preserve, for example, certain plant species, not to desecrate tombs and, further still, to preserve the memory of an object, of a space and the relationship that people have with a space. I’m most interested in the memory aspect of space as memory plays an important role in the connection between people, space and the object that must be moved or lifted.
The action of lifting is related to the ground, to what is on the ground or inside it. And this involves several actions: lifting, moving with the object lifted and finally putting it down. This allows me to consider Katasumbika as a performative action involving a line drawn from bottom to top followed by another drawn from one point to another. This performative movement can be illustrated by several migration stories, as was the case with the Nande. Anthropologist Francesco Remotti (2008) writes, “the banana tree is a plant that the Banande took with them”(2) when they immigrated to the east of what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo from present-day Uganda, around the 17th and 18th centuries.
I haven’t found any evidence of a ritual before the banana plants were extracted, but there is a reason for this action. The Nandes took these plants with them to grow food in their new living spaces. At the same time, this enabled them to maintain a cultural and historical link with their former living space and with their Konzo(3) brothers who had remained on the other side of Mount Rwenzori. From then on, the banana tree became an important connector between the Nande and the Konzo.
Planted close to houses and surrounding the village, banana trees are very present in the social life of the Nande. The banana tree provides food (fruit, flour) and drink called kasikisi, a banana beer used in many ceremonies and rituals to consolidate relations between the living, between the living and their land, and between the living and the dead. Banana leaves are used to cover food during cooking or as packaging. They are also used as mattresses and as thatches to cover the roofs of small stables. The fibers of the false banana trunk are used to weave ropes or mats. The banana grove provides protection for people (the village) from foreign gaze (Remotti, 2008) and from a more advanced perspective, protection of customs and culture. The banana grove is also space of collecting waste (often organic), provide a space for life (births can take place there) or a place of death(4) as writes Francesco Remotti (2008). This dead material will be recycled as fertilizer by the banana plant and given back, in a way, to the community, in the fruits. In a way, this preserves and perpetuates a vital cycle.
Unfortunately, it is in the banana plantations surrounding the town of Beni, in North Kivu, that massacres of the population by the ADF (Allied Democratic Forces) often take place. These massacres, which are described as terrorism and which have been perpetrated since 2014 in the areas around Beni, cause the life cycle to break down, the displacement of several hundred thousand people. These massacres, carried out for economic or political reasons, or simply for reasons that are often complex and inexplicable, become tool for uprooting and disconnecting entire populations from their land, their traditions and their culture, which are
carried by the banana tree left in the hands of the invaders. They are a tool for breaking the life cycle initiated and led by the banana plant.
The banana plant therefore appears in my artwork as important material for illustrating all of the above. But also, by taking the reflection a step further and drawing inspiration from its role in the vital cycle uniting the community, the banana tree, bearer and preserver of culture, connector between Nande and Konzo, itself becomes culture, it becomes tradition. It temporarily becomes the human being it carries within it as nutrients from the degradation of the body buried at its foot.(5) The banana tree is thus the main subject of this work by
becoming a metaphor for the human being.
Through the banana plant, the work Katasumbika becomes a means of questioning and reflecting on what can or cannot be ‘displaced’ from a human being. It is also a process of reflection on the banana tree as the bearer and preserver of a people’s traditions and culture. It is also a process of reflection on the desire for power expressed through land grabbing, which has led to the destruction of social life, the mass displacement of populations. Katasumbika is also a personal process of reconnecting with my culture and my origins through all the research carried out in Uganda. In the end, Katasumbika is a set of lines of connection, of reconnection, of life cycles generated by drawings, banana trees and banana beer installed on a mound of earth.
—————————————-
1 Or Nande (tribe I come from).
2 Remotti, Francesco. “Banana Groves and Tree Tombs: “Disappearing” or “Remaining” among the Banande of Northern Kivu (Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.” Rwenzori: Histories and Cultures of an Africain Mountain, edited by Cecilia Pennacini and Hermann Wittenberg, Fountain Publishers, 2008, pp. 169-199.
3 The language and traditions of the Konzo are similar to those of the Nande.
4 the dead, apart from the chief, are buried there.
5 see paragraph 4.
Sixte Kakinda is a self-taught drawer based in Goma, who holds Master’s and Doctorate degrees from Tokyo University of the Arts. In his work, Sixte is interested in the different lines that carry history and memory of the Congo. His aim is not only to tell the Congo’s story differently, but also to rethink, liberate and decolonize drawing, to generate new lines and explore alternative possibilities for artistic creation by analysing the properties of these lines and crossing them with other artistic disciplines.
Sixte has had a solo exhibition in Hiroshima and participated in several group shows in Hiroshima, Tokyo, Seoul, Leipzig, Antwerp and Lubumbashi. He took part in the 8th Lubumbashi Biennale, in the KLA ART 24 Festival, joined several art residencies in Kampala and Johannesburg and collaborated with artists such as Roger Peet, Toshie Takeuchi, Sinzo Aanza, Lindiwe Matshikiza and Hiraku Suzuki.
“Katasumbika”
,which means “that which cannot be lifted” in Kinande, language of the Banande
(1) is a project I led during my recent research and creation residency in Kampala. It refers to any object or body that is not supposed to be moved from the place where it is, from the space allocated to it or from the space containing it. But if this is to be done, it must be done according to very precise rites. “Katasumbika” thus acts as a care instruction in that, in the old days, it was used to preserve, for example, certain plant species, not to desecrate tombs and, further still, to preserve the memory of an object, of a space and the relationship that people have with a space. I’m most interested in the memory aspect of space as memory plays an important role in the connection between people, space and the object that must be moved or lifted.
The action of lifting is related to the ground, to what is on the ground or inside it. And this involves several actions: lifting, moving with the object lifted and finally putting it down. This allows me to consider Katasumbika as a performative action involving a line drawn from bottom to top followed by another drawn from one point to another. This performative movement can be illustrated by several migration stories, as was the case with the Nande. Anthropologist Francesco Remotti (2008) writes, “the banana tree is a plant that the Banande took with them”(2) when they immigrated to the east of what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo from present-day Uganda, around the 17th and 18th centuries.
I haven’t found any evidence of a ritual before the banana plants were extracted, but there is a reason for this action. The Nandes took these plants with them to grow food in their new living spaces. At the same time, this enabled them to maintain a cultural and historical link with their former living space and with their Konzo(3) brothers who had remained on the other side of Mount Rwenzori. From then on, the banana tree became an important connector between the Nande and the Konzo.
Planted close to houses and surrounding the village, banana trees are very present in the social life of the Nande. The banana tree provides food (fruit, flour) and drink called kasikisi, a banana beer used in many ceremonies and rituals to consolidate relations between the living, between the living and their land, and between the living and the dead. Banana leaves are used to cover food during cooking or as packaging. They are also used as mattresses and as thatches to cover the roofs of small stables. The fibers of the false banana trunk are used to weave ropes or mats. The banana grove provides protection for people (the village) from foreign gaze (Remotti, 2008) and from a more advanced perspective, protection of customs and culture. The banana grove is also space of collecting waste (often organic), provide a space for life (births can take place there) or a place of death(4) as writes Francesco Remotti (2008). This dead material will be recycled as fertilizer by the banana plant and given back, in a way, to the community, in the fruits. In a way, this preserves and perpetuates a vital cycle.
Unfortunately, it is in the banana plantations surrounding the town of Beni, in North Kivu, that massacres of the population by the ADF (Allied Democratic Forces) often take place. These massacres, which are described as terrorism and which have been perpetrated since 2014 in the areas around Beni, cause the life cycle to break down, the displacement of several hundred thousand people. These massacres, carried out for economic or political reasons, or simply for reasons that are often complex and inexplicable, become tool for uprooting and disconnecting entire populations from their land, their traditions and their culture, which are
carried by the banana tree left in the hands of the invaders. They are a tool for breaking the life cycle initiated and led by the banana plant.
The banana plant therefore appears in my artwork as important material for illustrating all of the above. But also, by taking the reflection a step further and drawing inspiration from its role in the vital cycle uniting the community, the banana tree, bearer and preserver of culture, connector between Nande and Konzo, itself becomes culture, it becomes tradition. It temporarily becomes the human being it carries within it as nutrients from the degradation of the body buried at its foot.(5) The banana tree is thus the main subject of this work by
becoming a metaphor for the human being.
Through the banana plant, the work Katasumbika becomes a means of questioning and reflecting on what can or cannot be ‘displaced’ from a human being. It is also a process of reflection on the banana tree as the bearer and preserver of a people’s traditions and culture. It is also a process of reflection on the desire for power expressed through land grabbing, which has led to the destruction of social life, the mass displacement of populations. Katasumbika is also a personal process of reconnecting with my culture and my origins through all the research carried out in Uganda. In the end, Katasumbika is a set of lines of connection, of reconnection, of life cycles generated by drawings, banana trees and banana beer installed on a mound of earth.
—————————————-
1 Or Nande (tribe I come from).
2 Remotti, Francesco. “Banana Groves and Tree Tombs: “Disappearing” or “Remaining” among the Banande of Northern Kivu (Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo.” Rwenzori: Histories and Cultures of an Africain Mountain, edited by Cecilia Pennacini and Hermann Wittenberg, Fountain Publishers, 2008, pp. 169-199.
3 The language and traditions of the Konzo are similar to those of the Nande.
4 the dead, apart from the chief, are buried there.
5 see paragraph 4.
Sixte Kakinda
Sixte Kakinda is a self-taught drawer based in Goma, who holds Master’s and Doctorate degrees from Tokyo University of the Arts. In his work, Sixte is interested in the different lines that carry history and memory of the Congo. His aim is not only to tell the Congo’s story differently, but also to rethink, liberate and decolonize drawing, to generate new lines and explore alternative possibilities for artistic creation by analysing the properties of these lines and crossing them with other artistic disciplines.
Sixte has had a solo exhibition in Hiroshima and participated in several group shows in Hiroshima, Tokyo, Seoul, Leipzig, Antwerp and Lubumbashi. He took part in the 8th Lubumbashi Biennale, in the KLA ART 24 Festival, joined several art residencies in Kampala and Johannesburg and collaborated with artists such as Roger Peet, Toshie Takeuchi, Sinzo Aanza, Lindiwe Matshikiza and Hiraku Suzuki.
Website : https://dsixte.wixsite.com/sixte-kakinda/portfolio
Instagram : @x.d.lab
SHARE: