1 Strolling through Congoville

Strolling through Congoville

Sandrine Colard invited 15 artists to reflect on Congoville and the Middelheim site. As black flâneurs and flâneuses, they guide us through the site and the exhibition. Colard here refers to the flâneur figure as coined by the French poet Charles Baudelaire in 1863: a stroller who observes and melts into the spectacle of the modern urban life. Modern cities were crucially shaped by the economic exploitation of the colonies. The (white male) flâneur as imagined by Baudelaire strolled the boulevards and parks and enjoyed the grandeur. Congoville reverses the roles and asks how black flâneurs and flâneuses – past and present – experience the city and the Middelheim Park. “Congoville invites artists to become city and park dwellers, to question and tread old paths, but also to map out new forms of urban and social commonality and commemoration. Visitors are invited to see the city’s public space through the eyes of these artist-flâneurs – in the past, the present, and inevitably the future as well”. Sandrine Colard, curator Congoville