François Makanga

In Belgium, public spaces and traditional displays within ethnographic collections frequently obscure the violent conditions under which objects were acquired, while the urban landscape continues to honor colonial figures through statues and street names. This systemic institutional denial leaves African perspectives, particularly Congolese resistance and the histories of colonized women, entirely invisible within the shared cultural and civic imagination.

Aiming to interrogate the legacies of colonialism and how they affect memory culture, Brussels-based mediator François Makanga established the initiative Cultural Marronage in the Public Sphere. Through immersive, theatrical walks through Brussels, the project unmasks the colonial histories embedded in monuments, while temporary labels (cartels éphémères) subvert official museum exhibitions by injecting contemporary African commentary.

Recent international developments, including the United Nations’ recognition of the transatlantic slave trade as a grave crime against humanity and the African Union’s declaration criminalizing colonialism, reflect an emerging call to develop legal frameworks capable of addressing the enduring harms of colonial violence. Makanga’s practice provides an artistic counterpart to this. By physically reclaiming cultural and public spaces, Cultural Marronage in the Public Sphere provides a site for symbolic reparation, elevates local memory work into a broader demand for historical and political accountability, and ensures ongoing injustices are remembered and actively addressed at the grassroots. These gestures activate a process of collective truth-seeking, one of the four pillars of transitional justice.