An embrace, clothes in cheerful colours and flowers: a nice, intimate scene. This colourful façade hides a less cheerful message, however. The skin of the two figures provides a clue. It has the texture of a printed circuit board from a piece of electronic equipment. This is how Eddy Kamuanga calls attention to the circumstances around rare metal ores, which can pretty much only be found in Congo. These ores, such as coltan, are essential for keeping this digital era going. Multitudes of underpaid labourers – some of whom are children – are involved, who dig these ores out of the ground by hand.

In addition, the colourful clothes refer to the plantations and textile mills that arose when Congo was a Belgian colony in the 1920s and 1930s. And in the spiritual world, eucalyptus is known to be purifying. Negative energy disappears in places where eucalyptus leaves are burnt.
Kamuanga uses his work not only to stand up for the people in his home country but also to call attention to the downsides of technological advances in today’s consumer society.

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