The entwinement of colonialism and the art world is no box of chocolates. Or perhaps it is. Congolese plantation workers make chocolate sculptures and from the profits they buy back 'their' land from multinational Unilever.
At the screening of his controversial film Enjoy Poverty at the Tate Modern in London, it struck artist Renzo Martens that the whole gallery space was full of Unilever logos. This inspired him to try and expose the practices of this multinational, already active in Congo for a century, and the connection between colonialism and the art world. On a Congolese palm oil plantation, he erected an art centre, where former plantation workers started making sculptures. These were reproduced in chocolate and successfully exhibited in New York. The profits the exhibition yielded were used by the labourers, most of whom earn less than a dollar a day, to buy back the land confiscated from them by Unilever.
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Gouden Kalf nominees
Beste Lange Documentaire (2021)
Renzo Martens
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