Style Congo: Where It All Starts and Where It All Ends?
Architect and cofounder of Traumnovelle, Johnny Leya invites us on a journey where architecture and visual arts intersect to challenge inherited colonial narratives. Spanning from the late 19th century, when Belgium established the Congo Free State in 1885, through to Congo’s independence in 1960, the talk traces how Belgian Art Nouveau absorbed Congolese resources and visual motifs, embedding imperial ideologies into celebrated European aesthetics.
| Dates | Sun 19 Oct 2025 |
| Times | 2–3pm |
| Space | Screening Room |
| Price | Free with purchase of a Fair ticket |
Yet Style Congo is not only about origins. It is also about ends, reappropriations, and new beginnings. Through critical and speculative readings of ornamentation, urban structures, and institutional forms, Leya exposes how architecture can both veil and reveal power. In parallel, the work of Léonard Pongo offers a multi-layered, contemporary vision of Congo, emancipated from colonial framings.
Set at the crossroads of aesthetics and politics, the talk turns to today’s curatorial practices in Belgium and beyond that seek to rewrite inherited narratives. An invitation to rethink, reclaim, and create new ways of telling our shared histories.
Moderator:
Johnny Leya, Architect and Cofounder of Traumnovelle
Panelists:
Prof. Paul Goodwin, UAL Chair of Contemporary Art & Urbanism, Director of TrAIN. Elena Ndidi Akilo, Curator and Cultural manager, and Léonard Pongo, Visual artist
You must purchase a Fair ticket for the same day as your talk. This talk takes place in The Screening Room and will commence promptly at the scheduled time, so please arrive five minutes before the start to avoid disappointment.
Header image: Johnny Leya, Congolisation, Traumnovelle, 2023. Courtesy of the Artist.