A Blueprint for Toads and Snakes

"Master Snake... you will only taste our wine if you sit like a toad!
But for me it's impossible! says the snake
Come on, fold up, curl up! Idiot, imbecile!
Come on... get on with it, curl up!
Come on... so go back home... without drinking! since you're not one of us! Leave!"

With the installation A Blueprint for Toads and Snakes, Sammy Baloji addresses the impact of large-scale mining operations in Congo. The work consists of three parts: set dressings, a town map and a series of portraits.

The decorative pieces are taken from the musical theatre play Chura na Nyoka [The Toad and the Serpent]. The Belgian colonial regime commissioned this piece from Katangese composer Joseph Kiwele in 1957. It tells the story of a toad and a snake who are unable to stay friends because of their biological differences. By reusing this stage set, Baloji criticises how the Belgian colonisers used racial segregation to maintain power.
The town map also refers to the segregation and to the original blueprint for the so-called "native town" in the mining town of Lubumbashi, the capital of Katanga (now Haut-Katanga). The plan shows the expropriation of properties and the creation of a so-called "cordon sanitaire": a buffer zone meant to keep the European and Congolese populations apart.

Finally, Baloji presents 138 portraits that commemorate the forgotten history of the exile of thousands of residents from Katanga during the Katangese Secession in 1960, the same year in which Congo became independent. The breakaway of the mineral-rich province was carried out with the diplomatic and military support of Belgium and drove many ethnic groups out of the area. By showing these archival images, Baloji wants to save them from oblivion and give the violent expulsions their place in history.