In Congo (originally titled Mutowashi), Pia Tuulia Cäbble exposes the violent continuity between colonial plunder and today’s extractive capitalism. The painting revisits the horrors of King Leopold II’s reign in the Congo Free State, when millions were enslaved, mutilated, or killed to feed Belgium’s rubber trade. Cäbble transforms Leopold into a serpent rendered in cobalt hues, a symbol of both sin and consumption, consuming an apple stamped with the Tesla logo, a reference to how modern tech industries continue to exploit Congo’s mineral wealth, particularly cobalt for electric batteries.
At the heart of the composition, Mother Congo mourns and protects her fallen son, Patrice Lumumba, the nation’s first Prime Minister and revolutionary martyr, assassinated with foreign complicity. Through richly layered textures of oil, collage, and hair, Congo becomes a reckoning, a cry for justice and remembrance, linking past atrocities to the polished devices that still carry their ghosts.