Shared with Filip de Boeck in occasion of the movie projection in Brussels, November 2017.

Visual review of the documentary by anthropologist Filip de Boeck and photographer Sammy Baloji. In the documentary, a medical doctor who specializes in aeronautic and spatial medicine shows the concrete tower he built in Kinshasa.

De Boeck contends that “this tower should be understood as an idiosyncratic but also programmatic, even messianic, statement on the nature of a more ideal and livable future city.”^[1] Yet, like many neighborhoods in the city it aims to transcend, the Tower lacks basic water and sanitation infrastructure: it is a microcosm of the global South metropolis.

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[1] De Boeck, Filip, and Sammy Baloji. Suturing the City. Living Together in Congo’s Urban Worlds. Autograph ABP; London, UK, 2016, p. 220