Screening of L’Arbre de l’authenticité, with Sammy Baloji | Activity
In The Tree of AuthenticitySammy Baloji explores questions of shared heritage, the impact of colonization on nature and the responsibility of Congolese, western and global societies for finding a solution to the climate crisis.
The film is set in the heart of the largest tropical forest in Africa, where one of the most important tropical agricultural research centers in the world is located. Sited on the banks of the River Congo, at its peak the INERA research station in Yangambi was a prosperous scientific center. Today it is a tangle of forest and ruins, where issues of knowledge, and of power over and access to it persist. Its vestiges show the weight of the colonial part and its inextricable links with climate change.
The film is related to Baloji’s work Equalpart of Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafricain which the artist uses visual and historical contrasts to question the rhetoric of “acclimatisation” and “progress” used by the European colonizers to justify territorial, scientific and economic domination.
Programme
19:00 – 19:15 h
Presentation by Sammy Baloji
19:15 – 20:45 h
Screening of The Tree of AuthenticitySammy Baloji, 2025, Belgium & Democratic Republic of the Congo, digital projection, colour, sound, 89 min, original language with Spanish subtitles
20:45 – 21:15 h
Discussion led by Sammy Baloji
participant
The artist Sammy Baloji (Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo, 1978) lives and works between Lubumbashi and Brussels. Since 2005 I have been exploring the memory and history of the Democratic Republic of Congo. His work is an ongoing investigation into the cultural, architectural and industrial heritage of the Katanga region, as well as questioning the impact of Belgian colonization. His critical view of contemporary societies serves as a warning of how cultural clichés continue to shape collective memory, allowing social and political power games to keep on dictating human behavior.
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This activity is part of the audiovisual series Visions of Panafricawhich expands the imaginaries of the exhibition Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica. Activity in collaboration with the Filmoteca of Catalonia.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
MACBA Thirty
We celebrate Year Thirty of an infinite MACBA that projects the future as a space for revision and possibility: of taking up what was left unfinished, updating what needs it and projecting anew everything that can still be transformed.
exhibition
From 6 November 2025 to 6 April 2026
Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica
