Eating the Soil

For centuries, communities called the “copper eaters” in Katanga have cultivated extensive knowledge of mineral deposits, soils, and ore processing. Their history shows that copper was not merely a resource to be mined, but part of a complex interplay involving territory, bodies, knowledge, and cosmologies. Building on this legacy, the Lubumbashi Biennale examines the material, social, and imaginary impacts of extractivism. It suggests that extraction does more than cause environmental and economic change; it also influences our perception and understanding of the world. This results in an “epistemology of the hole’—a way of knowing that primarily considers what has been taken from a territory and its society, such as resources, wealth, knowledge, and future potential. In this context, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is often viewed negatively, marked by its losses and the voids created by its extractive past.

But what happens when we shift our focus from the hole itself? How can we conceptualize what continues to persist, circulate, and shape worlds around and through it?This question becomes even more urgent considering the poisons of extractivism that have already been absorbed. Soils, waters, bodies, and imaginations carry the marks of this history. Accordingly, the Biennale focuses less on the hope of returning to a pure state and more on our ability to generate knowledge, memory, and new life forms from an already toxic environment. To examine these issues, the Biennale draws particularly on Valentin-Yves Mudimbe’s concept of indiscipline—which is seen as a critical practice capable of challenging inherited categories and reinventing the conditions of knowledge production.  This reflection also involves the concept of fugitivity, which is understood as the ability to pursue alternative paths and forge ways of existence that evade systems of capture.