Performing the ‘Mask:’ Kongo Astronauts (Eléonore Hellio and Michel Ekeba) on Postcolonial Entanglements

In conversation with Hanna Hölling, Emilie Magnin, and Valerian Maly, Eléonore Hellio and Michel Ekeba of the collective Kongo Astronauts discuss the origins, ongoing evolution, and potential futures of their multifaceted artistic practice. They explain the circumstances that first brought Hellio, who was born in Paris, to Kinshasa, and relate Ekeba’s first experiments with wearing an astronaut costume that he made of discarded electronics purchased at market. Conservation is figured partly in terms of the astronaut costumes, which are constantly changing through cycles of use and repair, but which also have the potential to be purchased as artworks and conserved as static museum objects. Hellio and Ekeba also discuss the films and photographs they produce, which both propagate and disseminate the live performances that take place in Kinshasa. Finally, conservation is also understood in the collaborative, social practices of Kongo Astronauts, which are taken up, reconfigured, and renewed by the various artists who pass through the collective. Ekeba and Hellio also relate the performative and ritual aspects of their work to traditional Congolese practices that were suppressed by colonial authorities.