Mayombe. Masters of Magic

Mayombe is a forested area to the north of the mouth of the River Congo. Leo Bittremieux, a Missionary of Scheut, lived there from 1907. In the decades that followed Bittremieux sent hundreds of sculptures and other objects to Belgium along with the corresponding documentation. They were destined for Leuven University’s ethnographic museum where they were to serve partly to help train colonials. When the university was split into two at the end of the 1960s, some of the objects were consigned to the care of the Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL). The missionary also sent a sizable collection of ethnography to the Museum of the Belgian Congo in Tervuren.

These priceless witnesses of the Yombe culture are now preserved in collections belonging to the K.U.Leuven, the UCL and the Royal Museum for Central Africa. To mark the fiftieth anniversary of the independence of Congo, M is bringing them together again for the first time in an exhibition.