Videos by Matthias De Groof
In 2013, the Royal Museum for Central Africa closes for renovation. Not only the building and the... more In 2013, the Royal Museum for Central Africa closes for renovation. Not only the building and the museum cabinets are in need of renewal: the spirit of the museum has to be brought into this century. In COMRAF, a board of advisers, the process of decolonization leads to discussions.
1h09m21s
Color (+B/W) - Stereo
French (+ Dutch)
Subtitles: French, Dutch, English
Cobra Films (Daniel De Valck), Atelier Graphoui
Directed by Matthias De Groof in collaboration with Mona Mpembele
Text & Voice: Jean Bofane
Image: Matthias De Groof
Editing: Sebastien Demeffe
Original Music: Ernst Reijseger
With the support of: VAF (Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds) 11 views
Papers by Matthias De Groof
Revue d'histoire contemporaine de l'Afrique, Dec 15, 2023
Cet article revient sur les enjeux de la restitution de la dent le Lumumba qui a eu lieu en juin ... more Cet article revient sur les enjeux de la restitution de la dent le Lumumba qui a eu lieu en juin 2022 à Bruxelles et qui s'est poursuivie avec des cérémonies en République démocratique du Congo (RDC). En revenant sur la façon dont les événements se sont produits, nous analyserons comment les artistes et les acteurs politiques et sociaux ont mobilisé cette dent comme un symbole dans leurs créations ou dans leurs revendications en Belgique et en RDC. Ces éléments permettent d'impulser une réflexion sur la nature historique de cet événement récent.
The ARTL@S BULLETIN is a peer-reviewed, transdisciplinary journal devoted to spatial and transnat... more The ARTL@S BULLETIN is a peer-reviewed, transdisciplinary journal devoted to spatial and transnational questions in the history of the visual arts. The Artl@s Bulletin 's ambition is twofold: 1. a focus on the "transnational" as constituted by exchange between the local and the global or between the national and the international; 2. an openness to innovation in research methods, particularly the quantitative possibilities offered by digital mapping and data visualization. We publish two to three thematic issues every year. If you would like to contribute to the journal with an article or propose a theme for a future issue, please contact the editors Catherine Dossin (
This group session discussed the notion of “Framing time and history” and investigated the ways i... more This group session discussed the notion of “Framing time and history” and investigated the ways in which the current practices of its participants (some of which emerged from the context of the Académie des Beaux-Arts de Kinshasa) are concrete examples of a South-South dialogue and how this can provide a critical perspective on art history and art education. Debates concerning the how and the why of that dialogue through art production, distribution and criticism are presented. Matthias De Groof * Rapporteur/ modérateur * Matthias De Groof is a visual artist and researcher. He holds a PhD in Cinema Studies & Visual Culture and was trained as a philosopher. He was a Fulbright scholar at NYU, teaches World Cinema, Aesthetics and Curating & Exhibiting at the Antwerp University, is a fellow at the Collegium for Advanced Studies (Helsinki) and a filmmaker at CobraFilms. Participants Matthias De Groof (BE – chercheur et cinéaste, Université d’Anvers), Daniella Geo (BR – Commissaire indépe...
Interventions: Journal of Postcolonial Studies, 2022
As the colonial roots of the ecological crisis become ever more apparent and its colonial present... more As the colonial roots of the ecological crisis become ever more apparent and its colonial present (in the form of environmental racism, climate apartheid, and green imperialism) also increasingly evident, one might consider climate activism and its aesthetics to be anticolonial. In this essay I discuss the aesthetics of eco-cinema from the “Global South” in terms of both artistic expression and activist uses of the medium, and examine how they propose new ways of producing films as well as alternative forms of imagination to what I will call “monoculture.” Through a reappraisal of what anticolonial aesthetics have historically entailed, and by recognizing these aesthetics in contemporary eco-films from the South, I intend to contribute to a reconsideration of the terms “anticolonial” and “aesthetics,” as well as of the relationship between the two as politics of transformation.
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Videos by Matthias De Groof
1h09m21s
Color (+B/W) - Stereo
French (+ Dutch)
Subtitles: French, Dutch, English
Cobra Films (Daniel De Valck), Atelier Graphoui
Directed by Matthias De Groof in collaboration with Mona Mpembele
Text & Voice: Jean Bofane
Image: Matthias De Groof
Editing: Sebastien Demeffe
Original Music: Ernst Reijseger
With the support of: VAF (Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds)
Papers by Matthias De Groof
1h09m21s
Color (+B/W) - Stereo
French (+ Dutch)
Subtitles: French, Dutch, English
Cobra Films (Daniel De Valck), Atelier Graphoui
Directed by Matthias De Groof in collaboration with Mona Mpembele
Text & Voice: Jean Bofane
Image: Matthias De Groof
Editing: Sebastien Demeffe
Original Music: Ernst Reijseger
With the support of: VAF (Vlaams Audiovisueel Fonds)
Rather than seeking to unravel the truth of actual events surrounding the historical Lumumba, this book engages with his representations. What is more, it considers every historiography as inherently embedded in iconography. Film scholars, art critics, historians, philosophers, and anthropologists discuss the rich iconographic heritage inspired by Lumumba. Furthermore, Lumumba in the Arts offers unique testimonies by a number of artists who have contributed to Lumumba's polymorphic iconography, such as Marlene Dumas, Luc Tuymans, Raoul Peck, and Tshibumba Kanda Matulu, and includes contributions by such highly acclaimed scholars as Johannes Fabian, Bogumil Jewsiewicky, and Elikia M’Bokolo.
Contributors: Balufu Bakupa-Kanyinda (artist), Karen Bouwer (University of San Francisco), Véronique Bragard (UCLouvain), Piet Defraeye (University of Alberta), Matthias De Groof (scholar/filmmaker), Isabelle de Rezende (independent scholar), Marlene Dumas (artist), Johannes Fabian (em., University of Amsterdam), Rosario Giordano (Università della Calabria), Idesbald Goddeeris (KU Leuven), Gert Huskens (ULB), Robbert Jacobs (artist), Bogumil Jewsiewicki (em., Université Laval), Tshibumba Kanda Matulu (artist), Elikia M’Bokolo (EHESS), Christopher L. Miller (Yale University), Pedro Monaville (NYU), Raoul Peck (artist), Pierre Petit (ULB), Mark Sealy (Autograph ABP), Julien Truddaïu (CEC), Léon Tsambu (University of Kinshasa), Jean Omasombo Tshonda (Africa Museum), Luc Tuymans (artist), Mathieu Zana Etambala (AfricaMuseum)
This publication is GPRC-labeled (Guaranteed Peer-Reviewed Content).
Wednesday 17 February: La mort d’un prophète (Peck, 1992).
Friday 19 February : Lumumba (Peck, 2000).
Sunday 21 February: Meurtre à Pacot (Peck, 2014).
Afrofuturism’s Mothership arrived! Het futurisme made in Africa, oftewel African Futurism, draagt op talloze wijzen bij aan het beeld van Afrika én aan speculatieve fictie genres. African Futurism is niet alleen gerelateerd aan ontmoetingen met aliens of andere fantasieën; maar ook – in het geval van bijvoorbeeld de Kameroense filmmaker Jean-Pierre Bekolo en eregast van de cyclus – aan een toekomst als bestendiging van het “nu”. De horror is het uitblijven van élke verandering!
Andere Afrikaanse en diaspora filmmakers verbeelden zich de toekomst dan weer vanuit een samenleving in snelle verandering. Futurisme extrapoleert zo maatschappelijke mutaties in een fictionele spiegel. Afrika in de toekomst, want Afrika is de toekomst!
"The world is catching up with Africa, not the other way around”, zegt Achilles Mbembe. Afrika fungeert als een laboratorium voor wat komen gaat. Afrika is “a paradigm for the future”, want ze vormt de voorhoede voor ontwikkelingen in het westen.
Zoals het (neo)koloniale beeld van Afrika ook de Afrikaanse werkelijkheid begon te bepalen; zo ook moet men zich eerst een toekomst inbeelden alvorens men er naar kan streven. Of, zoals Bekolo het zegt, “If the image is the problem, the image can be the solution”. Afrika verbeeld in een toekomst bepaalt het Afrika van de toekomst.
Dat dit voor een continent, dat altijd een toekomst ontzegd werd, van cruciaal belang is, verwoordt de grote Senegalese filmmaker Djibril Diop Mambety in een dialoog met Bekolo die hem vraagt wat cinema voor hem is. ‘Pour moi, c’est une grand-mère qui veut qu’à chaque fois on commence l’histoire d’une autre façon. Comme cette fois-ci “il était une fois”, qu’il soit possible de dire : "Demain, il sera une fois…".
De programmatie rond Africa is/in the Future, toont de tendens van Afrikaanse filmmakers om thema’s als verleden, herinnering, ecologie, migratie, politiek en xenofobie op het doek te brengen door zich in een toekomst te projecteren.
Ce n'est pas un hasard si 55 ans après l'assassinat d'une figure historique telle que Patrice Lumumba - premier Premier Ministre du Congo qui n'a pas réalisé son projet et dont le corps a disparu - un au delà imaginaire surgit dans l'art. La Piscine d'Activité, avec la collaboration de l'Université d'Anvers, présente de quelle manière la peinture, la photographie, la vidéo, la poésie, la musique, le film et la sculpture s'emparent du personnage de Lumumba que l'on retrouve aussi dans les lieux publics, les timbres poste et les dessins d'humour. La figure de Lumumba a été sacralisée ou diabolisée. L'espace entre ces deux extrêmes est apparu fécond pour une iconographie polymorphe. Les nombreux artistes jettent un regard sur la mémoire et la souffrance toujours vive qui a marqué le corps de Lumumba et l'histoire du Congo.
This interdisciplinary colloquium revolves around the work of filmmaker Raoul Peck and the iconography of Patrice Lumumba in Peck’s films as well as in all other forms of art.
‘The future has died with the prophet’, says Raoul Peck in Lumumba, la mort d’un prophète (1992). However, the figure of Lumumba, his unfinished project and the inability to bury his corpse, cast a spectral shadow on the present. Peck and many other artists with him deal with these Spectres by a responsiveness to memory and to the undigested suffering which inscribed itself on Lumumba’s body and Congo’s history.
The figure of Patrice Lumumba has been oscillating between demonization and beatification. The void between these two opposites has been appropriated by artists in painting, music, poetry, literature, photography, theatre, cinema, video, cartoons, public space and sculpture. The colloquium aims at bringing together scholars and artists working on these iconographies around Lumumba and/or the cinematographic oeuvre of Raoul Peck. The colloquium will also host an exhibition and film program on the theme.