Expo The Land of Sprinkles reveals colonial trade

There is something curious about the idea that a work of art is literally made of that which it criticizes. CATPC, the Cercle d'Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise, does just that. The 30 sculptures in The Land of Sprinkles are cast in cocoa, palm oil and sugar, the same raw materials that were harvested for years on the Unilever plantation in Lusanga, DR Congo, where the collective originated. Through 3D technology, clay images are transformed into chocolate sculptures. The result is an exhibition you can physically smell as it deals with exploitation.

The collective consists of 23 artists and has been active since 2014. Two people play key roles in the story behind it: Renzo Martens, artist and co-founder, and René Ngongo, Congolese environmental activist and also co-founder. Martens has been working for years on the idea that art can be an economic tool, not just a symbolic gesture. Ngongo brings ecological and political knowledge of the country itself. Together they built a collective that has now bought back 395 hectares of depleted plantation land in Lusanga with the proceeds from their art sales. That's not a metaphor, that's land.

The space in H'ART Museum, the former Hermitage building on the Amstel River, gives the works the space they deserve. Next to the chocolate sculptures hang embroideries on real jute sacks, the kind of bags in which cocoa is transported worldwide. On those bags are embroidered portraits of resistance fighters and plantation workers from Haiti, Suriname, Indonesia, Ghana and Congo. People rarely named in history books, here they are. The combination of the raw material of the jute sack and the fine embroidery gives those portraits something double: labor-intensive tribute on a tool of trade.

Proceeds from The Land of Sprinkles go back to Lusanga. This is not where you buy chocolate. This is where you buy land back.

H'ART Museum sits on the Amstel River, within walking distance of the Waterlooplein neighborhood. The building has a long history as an exhibition space, but the combination of this building and this work does not feel coincidental. A former Hermitage branch, once a symbol of cultural diplomacy in its own ambivalent way, now hosts a collective that transforms colonial commodity transport into art. Proceeds from The Land of Sprinkles go back to Lusanga. Here you don't buy chocolate. This is where you buy land back.