Two Sides of the Same Coin

Palm oil and chocolate

The members of the Congolese art collective Cercle d’Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise (CATPC) live at a plantation in Lusanga. Western multinationals destroyed local biodiversity. This left the original inhabitants with dry a barren land. Clay extracted from this depleted soil, makes the basis for CATPC’s sculptures. These works are made of palm oil and cocoa: raw materials that were grown on the plantations in Lusanga.

Post-plantage

CATPC exhibits and sells its sculptures all over the world. With the proceeds, the members of the collective buy back their land and try to restore local biodiversity by planting a ‘sacred forest’. This way, CATPC turns the atrophied plantations into forests that provide local food security and increase biodiversity. They call this the ‘post-plantation’: a system that restores both land and life.

Dialogue museum collection

In Eindhoven, CATPC places its sculptures – but also textile works, drawings and video installations – as interventions among artworks from the museum's collection, which are now on view in the collections display Delinking and Relinking. The exhibition Two Sides of the Same Coin guides you through stories of colonization and land regeneration. It shows us the place given to art from Congolese plantations in the art world.

Colonial past

The exhibition Two Sides of the Same Coin echoes the Van Abbemuseum's own colonial past. CATPC bridges the Lusanga plantations and the plantations in Deli in Sumatra, where Van Abbemuseum founder and tobacco merchant Henri Van Abbe bought his tobacco. With these earnings, he founded the Van Abbemuseum and bought the collection.

Venice Biennale

In 2024, CATPC's work was on display in the Dutch pavilion of the Venice Biennale. The exhibition Two Sides of the Same Coin is a unique follow-up to the presentation at this art manifestation.