Throughout the first moments of the morning, a young boy roams through the streets of Goma. He makes a mistaken turn and meets thieves. Back home, his father flicks through TV channels while his mother checks bags of flour. No one speaks. The silence is shattered only by static on the radio.
When dusk arrives, Baraka is resting on the shore of Lake Kivu, looking south to Bukavu and east towards Rwanda, discovering no hope in either direction.
This is the opening to the comic strip depicting Goma's uncertainties, the first comic by a 31-year-old visual artist, Edizon Musavuli, shared earlier this year. The story portrays everyday struggles in Goma through the perspective of a child.
Influential Congolese artists such as Barly Baruti, Fifi Mukuna and Papa Mfumu’Eto, who seized the public’s attention in comic strips in the past, primarily worked abroad or in Kinshasa, a city over 1,000 miles from Goma. But there are few contemporary comics based in or about the Democratic Republic of the Congo created by Congolese artists.
Expression provides light. It represents a foundation.
“My art journey started since I could hold a pencil,” Musavuli states of his evolution as an artist. He began to engage in the craft dedicatedly only after finishing high school, registering at a media institute in Nairobi. His studies, however, were cut short by monetary constraints.
His first individual showcase was in January 2020, curated with a cultural institute in Goma. “It was a really big exhibition. The response was remarkable how everyone reacted to it,” says Musavuli.
But just a year later, the violent M23 militia, aided by Rwanda, reemerged in eastern DRC and disrupted Goma’s vulnerable art scene.
“Creatives in the city are really dependent on foreign exhibitions like that,” he says. “In their absence, it will seem like we don’t exist. That is the current situation right now.”
When M23 seized Goma in January this year, the city’s creative spaces weakened alongside its economy. “Expression fosters optimism, it’s something to start with, but our situation here doesn’t change. So people in Goma are not really invested any more,” says Musavuli.
Creators and expression have long been consigned to the margins of the state agenda. “Art is not something the government values,” he says.
Turning to Instagram, he began sharing individual and shared experiences of Congolese life in the form of cartoons. In one post, describing his childhood, he titled an interactive story: “I’m from where you learn to run before you walk.”
In one clip, which has since received more than 10,000 views, he is seen working on an ongoing painting, while explosions are heard in the background.
Within this environment that the comic narrative was created. The story is filled with political undertones, emphasizing how daily life have been stripped away and replaced with perpetual insecurity.
Yet Musavuli maintains the short comic was not meant as direct political commentary: “I don't consider myself a political artist or activist but I say what people around me are thinking. This is the way I do my art.”
We might not have power but not doing anything is so much worse. If your voice is heard by two people, it’s something.
Asked whether he feels able to express himself freely under control, he says: “People can speak openly in Congo, but will you be free after you speak?”
Making art that appears too negative of M23 or the government can be risky, he says: “In Kinshasa it’s acceptable to talk about everything that’s wrong with the rebels. But in Goma it’s typical to not do that because it’s not protected for you.
“From an administrative perspective, we are cut off from the ‘actual’ Congo,” he says. Unlike other cities in the North and South Kivu provinces of the DRC, Goma remains under full control by the M23.
As stated by Musavuli, some artists have come under duress to create favorable content out of concern for their lives. “For those with talent with a voice in Goma, the M23 can leverage you, sometimes by intimidation, or the artists make that decision to work with M23,” he says. “It’s complicated to judge. But I cannot let myself to do something like that.”
If insecurity is one challenge, earning an income through the arts is another obstacle. “A challenge exists in Congo that people don’t buy art. The majority of the artists here have to do other things to get by.” Musavuli works as a cartoonist for a digital outlet.
But he adds: “I’m also not doing art to sell it.”
In spite of the risks and the financial uncertainties, Musavuli says he wants to continue producing work that gives representation to the marginalized people of Goma. “Our community is strong – this is not the first time we have been through this.
“Although influence is limited but staying passive is so much worse. Even if your voice is heard by just two people, it’s something.”
At the end of this visual narrative, Baraka walks alone down an empty road, his head held high. “Tomorrow might look exactly the same,” he says, “but I persist moving. Maintaining optimism is already pushing against.”
