Unsung Heroes: The informal economies of Kinshasa

caryatides congolaises I, 2023, archival pigment print. 24x18 inches. Edition of 10. $650.
For sales, please contact Sozita Goudouna/The Opening Gallery  1 (347) 971-8670 

This body of work is inspired by years spent in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. In this megacity of over 17 million the streets are crisscrossed by street vendors who carry their merchandise on their heads with remarkable poise and grace.

Carrying a centuries-old tradition into the 21st century, these men and women with their “head stores” form a significant system of economic survival that often supports entire families.

In “Caryatides Congolaises”, I reimagine these vendors as caryatids— load-bearing human figures used as architectural supports in Greek classical architecture—as becoming part of the urban fabric of Kinshasa.

Several of these mobile displays captured my attention for their striking architectural quality: “sundries stores” constructed from cardboard boxes held together by rubber bands, vertical stacks of egg cartons crowned by pyramids of hard-boiled eggs, and multi-packs of bottled water, also carried vertically.

I am particularly fascinated by how the “head stores” seem to obey their own kind of architectural logic, as if guided by a building code.

Unsung Heroes is a tribute to the dignity and strength of these men and women and a meditation on the informal economies across the Global South.

Eggs and Sundries, 2023. Archival pigment print, 10x 20 inches, Edition of 5. $950. For sales, please contact hl@henriklangsdorf.com

Water and Sundries, 2023. Archival pigment print, 10x 20 inches, Edition of 5. $950. For sales, please contact hl@henriklangsdorf.com

Placid precarity, 2023, archival pigment print, 24x18 inches, edition of 3. $1250. For sales, please contact hl@henriklangsdorf.com