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P<\/span>amela Tulizo\u2019s latest series of photographs started with a question. \u201cI asked myself, why are woman in my community in particular, and African woman in general, so strong?\u201d says Tulizo, an artist and photographer from the Democratic Republic of the Congo<\/a>. \u201cWhere does this strength come from?\u201d<\/p>\n Growing up in Goma in eastern DRC, Tulizo was informed and inspired by the women she was surrounded by, including her mother, her sisters, her mother\u2019s friends and her neighbours.<\/p>\n Years later, when she began to look into the role of women throughout African history, she says: <\/strong>\u201cI realised that perhaps women have been forced to be strong since the dawn of time, forced by circumstance to build that resilience.\u201d<\/p>\n Her research brought her to slavery, the \u201ccruellest period in human history\u201d, which is often just associated with the men who were forced across oceans to form workforces abroad. Women, she noticed, were largely invisible, their stories untold.<\/p>\n With that in mind, Tulizo placed women at the centre of her series of 23 staged photographs called Mababu<\/em> (\u201cancestors\u201d in Swahili). In it, she portrays figures such as Kimpa Vita<\/a> and Queen Nzinga<\/a>, who were both renowned for resisting the European colonisation of Africa in the 17th and early 18th century.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause of racism, there\u2019s always been this belittling of African women that portrays them as vulnerable, as victims, and suggests they lack strength or intelligence,\u201d says Tulizo.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted to end that narrative by showing that despite everything they endured, they remained strong and fought for freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n Ubakaji<\/em> \u2013 Swahili for rape. Cotton, another commodity that fuelled the transatlantic slave trade, features in Tulizo\u2019s work along with tobacco and sugar cane<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n <\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n Tulizo\u2019s path to photography has not been easy \u2013 in part, she believes, because she is a woman. She started her career as a reporter but decided to focus on photography when she felt she could not write about everything she wanted to cover.<\/p>\n There was nowhere to train as a photographer in Goma so she took photos whenever she could, and became one of a handful of female photographers in the city.<\/p>\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t easy at first because I didn\u2019t have a role model to follow, or anyone to guide me in my early days,\u201d she says. \u201cThe community didn\u2019t accept me right away \u2013 whether it was my parents, or even other photographers \u2013 since it was very much a male-dominated world.<\/p>\n \u201cBut facing so many obstacles motivated me to stick it out to the end and prove that I could be a woman and a photographer,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n In 2020, her work Double Identity won the Dior photography and visual arts award for young talents, a series that contrasted the media portrayal of Congolese women as victims with their true identities. This allowed her to finance the creation in 2021 of a cultural centre in Goma for women and girls, Tulizo Elle Space<\/a>. When renewed violence broke out in the region in early 2025, she fled and now lives in France.<\/p>\n She approached her latest series of work, Mababu, as if she were making a film, using cinematic staging with actors, costumes, makeup and outdoor sets to create vivid scenes.<\/p>\n In one set, a woman stands in Lake Kivu holding a basket of either cotton, tobacco or sugar cane, and surrounded by other women bound in bandages (wrapping the body being a common practice in funeral rituals). The images, which were shot in Goma and Belgium, are defiant, and do not gloss over past suffering.<\/p>\n Clockwise from top left: Shaba<\/em>, which means copper or brass in Swahili; Kimpa Vita<\/em>, a Kongolese medium who became a figurehead of resistance to slavery; La Mula\u0302tresse Solitude <\/em>(The mulatto Solitude) was a Maroon leader in the fight against slavery in the French colony of Guadeloupe. Executed after the Matouba revolt was suppressed, Solitude\u2019s last words were \u2018live free or die\u2019; Reine Zingha <\/em>(Queen Zinga), was a skilful monarch of the Ndongo and Matamba states in modern-day Angola who led fierce resistance to Portuguese colonialism<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n <\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n Fashion is a crucial element of the series and Tulizo uses it to elevate and pay tribute to women. She uses colour, accessories and styling to express hope, courage and strength. In some images, where a woman is bound or suffering, she is still elevated through a hat, dress or gloves, says Tulizo.<\/p>\n \u201cTo me, she remains a heroine, and fashion allows me to honour her, giving her the strength and power she deserves,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Some of the photos incorporate images of natural resources. The titles of the opening works \u2013 Tumbako<\/em>, Miwa<\/em> and Pamba \u2013 <\/em>refer to tobacco, sugar cane and cotton, three commodities that played a central role in fuelling the transatlantic slave trade. \u201cSlavery did not happen in a vacuum,\u201d says Tulizo. \u201cIt was driven by the pursuit of natural resources.\u201d<\/p>\n Tumbako<\/em> (tobacco). Tulizo says lithium, gold and other minerals have replaced tobacco, sugar and coffee as the fuel of war and sexual violence<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n <\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n The photos echo what is going on today in eastern DRC, where devastating conflict and sexual violence have been driven by decades of competition over rich mineral resources.<\/p>\n \u201cRegrettably, today we are experiencing a modern form of slavery driven by technology, development and global progress,\u201d says Tulizo. \u201cBack then it was tobacco, sugar and coffee. Today it is war and sexual violence over lithium, gold and minerals.<\/p>\n Nyele. <\/em>Hair (nywele <\/em>in Swahili) could act as a symbol of ethnic identity and resistance to colonialism. Hairstyles, especially for women, often feature almost as an art form in many African cultures<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n <\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n \u201cEveryone wants to conquer the world, to be the first to produce electric cars, or to be the leading global power with nuclear weapons. None of that is possible without these raw materials.<\/p>\n \u201cUnfortunately,\u201d Tulizo adds, \u201chumanity has not learned its lesson, and we are repeating the same mistakes in a modern form.\u201d<\/p>\n M<\/a><\/em>ababu \u2013 Spirit of the Ancestors<\/a> by Pamela Tulizo<\/a> is <\/em>at <\/em>GC De Markten<\/em>, Brussels, as part of the <\/em>Vrije Universiteit Brussel<\/em> <\/em>cultural <\/em>diplomacy initiative, from 8<\/em> to 31 October<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
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