‘They call us bewitched’: the DRC performers turning trash into art – photo essay

Dolls found in rubbish dumps, radio parts and discarded flip-flops are among items used to create surreal costumes by a Kinshasa collective highlighting political and environmental issues

by Kris Pannecoucke

As a child, Shaka Fumu Kabaka witnessed the atrocities that took place during the six-day war between Ugandan and Rwandan forces in his home town of Kisangani in June 2000.

“It was not even our war, but a war between two foreign armies,” he said.

The fighting led to more than 1,000 deaths and left many more wounded in the northern city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “I lost relatives,” says Kabaka. Read more