Belgian-Congolese photographer Léonard Pongo trained as a journalist but soon realized the images he wanted to make went beyond mere documentation. Host Gianofer Fields talks with Pongo about his series, The Uncanny, his family's role in his art, and his choice to work in black and white. Pongo's book The Uncanny is now available.
Meet Me at the Chazen is a podcast about the the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Chazen Museum of Art, the largest collecting museum in the Big Ten. As we report what’s happening here, we'll also explore what it means to be an art museum at a public university and how art museums can help enrich and strengthen the communities they serve. Meet Me at the Chazen theme and incidental music is “Swinging at the Pluto Lounge,” composed and performed by Marvin Tate and friends, and is used with permission of the artists.
We'd love to connect - find us on Facebook and Instagram!
Belgian-Congolese photographer Léonard Pongo trained as a journalist but soon realized the images he wanted to make went beyond mere documentation. Host Gianofer Fields talks with Pongo about his series, The Uncanny, his family's role in his art, and his choice to work in black and white. Pongo's book The Uncanny is now available.
Meet Me at the Chazen is a podcast about the the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Chazen Museum of Art, the largest collecting museum in the Big Ten. As we report what’s happening here, we'll also explore what it means to be an art museum at a public university and how art museums can help enrich and strengthen the communities they serve. Meet Me at the Chazen theme and incidental music is “Swinging at the Pluto Lounge,” composed and performed by Marvin Tate and friends, and is used with permission of the artists.
We'd love to connect - find us on Facebook and Instagram!
Gianofer Fields 00:06
Meet me at the Chazen. I'm your host Gianofer Fields. Leonard Pongo is a Belgian-Congolese visual artist. He calls his practice lens-based. The exhibition is entitled Insistent Presence: Contemporary African Art from the Chazen Collection, and features five photographs from a series Pongo calls The Uncanny. For nearly 13 years, Pongo worked as a documentarian and photojournalist. According to Pongo, his profession taught him how to see. However, it was his family that changed his point of view.
Leonard Pongo 00:44
To me, The Uncanny was this attempt to use photography, and indeed in the beginning in a very, very documentary way, because I started with purely a photojournalistic goal, which was to kind of make a record, make normal social political analysis of the country when it was going through its second democratic elections in 2011. So I started with that, and thought I would use the camera to you know, kind of extract kind of truth and Zeitgeist about the country by photographing it. But the reality that very quickly caught up to me was that I was staying with family, I was constantly surrounded by family, and also, you know, included by my family and accompanied by them. And their comments on my approach really made a change. So I very quickly, kind of drifted away from that idea, and realized that because of them, mostly, that sure there were plenty of photographers photographing in the DRC, in that way, whether we're conducting a study or analysis, creating truth, but nobody really cared about what it was like to live in Congo, as a Congolese. And my family was really vocal about the fact that there were already so many Western photographers doing the type of work that I set on to do with this idea of working as a photojournalist, maybe it would be interesting to do something else and to do something that also relates to them.
And I think that what you're seeing in, what you see in the images, has to do also with my position as somebody who eventually got more and more included, but also constantly had this inner and outer vision of a position, living in an environment that felt quite familiar. And that felt genuine. But also, being at times struck by how different it was than what I thought it would be, how overwhelming it could feel. And so that's where the title for the series comes from this idea of being an alien, and at times, and at other times being just a part of a hole and this constant back and forth, which was very important for me. I wanted that to impact more on the audience than this idea that, you know, you're gonna look at the images, and you're gonna understand the inner truth and the complexity behind the life of every person and the images, which I believe by now, it's really not possible. But yeah, I think conducting this project, and well, mostly being with my family helped me to realize, okay, there's way too much truth to try and synthesize it into images. However, maybe if I use the images differently, I can provide kind of a bubble where you can relate to the experience. And I think that's what I really learned with this project and with the people who actually took me in, which is to more try and get closer to experience with the images and maybe not focused so much on the analytical part.
It's really interesting that it that you talk about how this process brought you closer to this group, because you think about documentaries, if the other coming in and watching something and witnessing something, and then and then translating it through their own personal experiences their eyes, their gaze and then presenting it to someone else. And this idea that this thing, this this lens, this tool has camera became this this conduit for transformation. Yeah, definitely also, for myself for quite a long time. It looks like it's Congo in its intrinsically relational space. And so coming, of course, if you want to interact with people in this very more, what should I call it, utilitarian way of, I come, I have a mission, I will create images of what suits you know, which you usually do and photojournalism, you have kind of a script to follow and try and document that you can do it and people will question you, of course, and be vocal, but they will also help you do that. But the thing was, which I hadn't, kind of, in my mind coming really, the thing was that my family just considered me even though I'm a European, you know, I grew up in Europe. So that's, that's also part of, of how they saw me. But they just saw me as another child of the family, another brother, another, another older brother, younger brother different depending on who I was with. And that actually made it clear that through, you can do the reporting, if that's what you want, but you could also do something else that makes sense for the whole group.
And since my point in being there was relating to people, photography kind of became embedded into that, rather than commanding the creation of specific images, which meant that I had to lose agency. But losing agency in defining what I was looking at, and how I was looking at it meant that others would gain it. And that was also the whole point, which I completely agree with, that they know better. Better, because in 2011, when I started the project, I had never been in Congo. So my only relationship was from outside, from uncles, and, and family and cousins and aunties that lived in Belgium, and then I saw growing up, but with the country, the environment, the atmosphere, I have no direct relationship with it. So to me that what that completely changed my relationship to photography, and to myself, but it's also it kind of forced me to reconsider how I was going to use imagery and photography and what it actually meant, but it became also very influential on my, my way of, of creating.
Gianofer Fields 07:59
It's funny how a thought process could be so transformative, like, you left Belgium as one person. And you left Congo as someone else.
Leonard Pongo 08:15
I think I left Congo, like if I have to think about that one trip, which was the so that my first time was for three months. I didn't even leave it as someone else; I left it in very question, had a very unclear state of flux with many, many questions. And over the course of the following years, that kind of reconfigured also who I was. It felt a lot like parts of my identity also could express themselves or could make sense in the Congolese context. So it definitely was a great experience in terms of growth, and many, many, many other levels, as well. And it also helped me realize that interestingly, you know, the in Kenya has a very specific visual language. But I also realized that Oh, actually, I can lose urgency in where I go and how and, and that's actually empowering, not trying to master that or to be in charge and control. And that doesn't stop me from embedding also my kind of emotional response or emotional state into the imagery, which makes it then maybe relatable in a way that's less mental, but also, hopefully for me, it means that that my position seeps through in a different way,
Gianofer Fields 10:00
it really reminds me of like the African storytelling where the hero has to go through some sort of body of water or spirit something and then comes out on the other side transformed, or you somehow changed or questioning who they are, are somehow different than who they are.
Leonard Pongo 10:17
And they have often dumbfounded about who they were they actually even anymore. Right? Right, like the transformations happen, but they, they're aware that something happened, they can just never put words on what, which I think is a very powerful process.
Gianofer Fields 10:37
Even though it may be in the time uncomfortable, and it should be uncomfortable, like that kind of change should be uncomfortable. I like the idea that it's that kind of thing, that forces you to pay attention to it like you have you, the only way you're gonna get through it is to go through it. So you have to go through it to come out on the other end to see who you're going to be, or to see who you truly are.
Leonard Pongo 10:59
And that's the relationship with it because the way that my family would remind me is just, you know, you just get a slap, you get constant slaps in the face. I mean, the proverbial slaps, but, you know, it's exactly what he's saying. It's like, Oh, it's okay if you want to ignore it, you just keep on getting slapped.
Gianofer Fields 11:20
Right! Right, oh!
Leonard Pongo 11:24
Whatever, if you want to keep on being in control, defining everything and ignore this process, well, the transformation is gonna cure all the same, it's just gonna be most painful if you try not to let it.
Gianofer Fields 11:41
You can only fight it for so long. And my father will say, 'Okay, go ahead on with your bad self.' So whenever I was like, doing something stupid, he'd be like 'Okay, go ahead. You know, go!'
Leonard Pongo 11:51
Yeah, do you!
Gianofer Fields 11:52
'Do you! You go ahead. I can't tell you nothing. Go ahead on.'
Leonard Pongo 11:57
And you're gonna learn. And there's really that as well. You know, when I left, I asked my dad, my father's Congolese. And I asked him so many questions for so long. And he just basically let me go, you know, at the time, I was 21. And it was like, 'Hey, you just go do it.' And I was like, 'Yeah, but how, what?' 'Just go your uncle will be at the airport.' And he wasn't, he had sent someone to pick me up, I had no clue about. You know, this whole thing is like, to me, it's a whole process. And it's when you look back at it, it's very funny, actually.
Gianofer Fields 12:38
So then, what's your relationship with these images? Now? I mean, it's been what? For some, it's been 10 years. For some it's been 12 years. What's your relationship with them now? How are you still changed when you look at them now? Or is it, or has that sort of settled in you?
Leonard Pongo 12:57
I think I have more distance. I see also how I would have reacted at times when I took some images. Some things still trigger me the same way. Others are just plain fun to look at. Sometimes I know so better who the people are in the images than when I took them. Other people passed suddenly now. So I was I was on was that. I think two, three weeks ago I was sitting with, I was visiting my uncle in Kinshasa. And we were just chilling and talking in his place. And it was like, you see, you see these chickens? Well, I like to think that they are kind of Kevin's descendants. So Kevin is one of my cousins who I traveled with and sadly enough, he passed, but he had brought those chickens. And those chickens can't stop just, you know, spreading around the whole plot of land where many of my family members stay and my uncle takes care of the chickens and he feeds them and they, they like they took him as a caretaker like they will come and sit next to him. They have zero fear towards him. And it's like, you know, I love that idea of things reconnecting and branching out and this continuation. So the images themselves that done but that took a long time because the book is coming out now in next week, actually. And I started the project 12 years ago, so it's a testament to how slow I work, which I really enjoyed because we did the editing, you know, started the editing from the beginning of the COVID period until last year, May. And that was a long process, I went back to the whole set of images, and I re-edited everything, I re-looked at everything, which was also a very nice occasion to extract images from that archive, and then just spam the whole family with images of you know, sometimes my cousin's, but 10 years ago when we're absolute babies and making fun of everybody.
Gianofer Fields 15:34
There's nothing, my family we have a family Zoom every Saturday, and there's nothing like roasting each other. Everybody's talking at the same time, talking about four different things at the same time. It's just nothing that replaces that.
Leonard Pongo 15:50
It's the best. You know, what your place in the family hierarchy is you know, who you can roast and how and how to annoy them best. And you know, they can't say anything, or they can try but it's going to be no consequences. That's the absolute best.
Gianofer Fields 16:10
If you have to form alliances. At any moment, that alliance could turn on you like, oh, no, I'm in the hot seat.
Leonard Pongo 16:20
This person has to be stopped! You're like 'yeah, we're going for it'! Yeah, but come on and be a spy, what can you say?
Gianofer Fields 16:27
Right? Right?
Leonard Pongo 16:31
You know that, there's that part, which is like, it's very, it's a lot less serious also, and, and I like that, because the images can be in the project. And I can be like, very intense when I'm focusing on something. But then it's recontextualizes to just have you know, that one cousin, that's going to remind you how, I don't know, you tripped and fell headfirst or whatever stupid things you did.
Gianofer Fields 17:01
They're always somebody to remind you of who you are. Yeah, so important, because it's so easy to get lost in your own idea of who you are. People who really see you, you need people who are willing to see you, because that's the only way that you have those connections, and you can grow from that. If I was always Work Gianofer, I would be insufferable, you know, you need that little bit of a reminder of who you are, what your what your DNA holds.
Leonard Pongo 17:34
And that you're not just that one thing that's either related to work or to that environment, that you are many things are and it changes all the time. And that includes being a stupid goofball someday, which is very nice.
Gianofer Fields 17:50
So Leonard, we have five pieces in our collection, are those the entire Uncanny series or are there more?
Leonard Pongo 17:57
No, The Uncanny is much wider. And on top of that, it became wider in the process of making the books. I think the book is 100 and something. And The Uncanny, my edit of images was around 150. So by now there's going to be I would say around 200 images in the series.
Gianofer Fields 18:23
Whoo! So are you familiar with the five? Are you familiar with the five? I know you're familiar with them, but you know what, five that we have? Because I want to get into describing them, because we've been talking all around them but I want to give people who are listening a chance to see what we're seeing when we look at them.
Leonard Pongo 18:42
I know I have them saved on the cloud. There it is.
Gianofer Fields 18:46
There's one with a man and a white, I think you I think you call them vests.
Leonard Pongo 18:51
So let me open the photos. I know that one was Amos, he was a friend that I met through another person who's a good friend who also supported me, helped me carry out this project. So Amos was having, it was actually having a concert and it was like, he didn't tell me just told me 'Yeah, come on this place at that time. Let's make a few shots.' I want to do my portraits and I was like okay, and I got there and it was a whole concert because he had stage nights in Lubumbashi, so I took some photos during the concert and it was after the concert was finished. It was like 'Okay, come, come, come, come, come, go to the backstage and you can do something good over there.' And I started shooting and then he started smoking and posing and that's when this happens which we run to The place where I was where we're staying, which, which is the Picha Art Center in Lubumbashi. And the next day, we're just going to run the images with other artists looking over and it was like 'Yeah, that one, that one, that one.' So that's actually the story behind it. And then we met a few times again in Kinshasa, because he moved there to study. And then again, three, four years ago, at Picha again, so in Lubumbashi, again.
Gianofer Fields 20:33
Leonard, are all the series, the five that we have, is that one event, or is it several different events?
Leonard Pongo 20:41
Oh, not at all. It's not one event, it's. So these images were taken between, I think, in 2011, and 2013. And it's being with family in one city in the south of the country. The church image is in Kinshasa, the two actually, the one with the young lady standing in a lot of blur is also in Kinshasa, but in another place with another pastor, and most is in Lubumbashi, and the last image with a girl dancing surrounded by a crowd is also in Lubumbashi, but weeks later at a party. It was also the idea, you know, to have, not this kind of, 'Oh, yeah, I'm going to tell a story about the country. And it's going to be very organized. And it goes through this, this and that, like with a classical, kind of narrative device.' It was more to have, what we call it, a shattered, fragmentary experience with kind of many bits of mirror, many parts of the global experience that you could get into. And each part each fragment is kind of one of these images. So it's not about saying, telling the story of this person that goes through that. It's more about, okay, how can I match with imagery? How can I match an experience of living in the country by putting together kind of fragmentary excerpts from different experiences of being in the DRC.
Gianofer Fields 22:36
I love, too, the fact that in the West, we are often guilty of seeing images like this, and assuming it's some sort of ritual, that it's sort of steeped in something deep and dark and mysterious that we could never understand and, but I love the fact that it's these what could be what could be considered ordinary, everyday actions. You go to church, you have a friend's show, you hang out over here, you do that. So it's really this this way of having, or forcing us, or say forcing, because you can't make us do anything. It's an invitation for us to step outside of what we think we know about the continent.
Leonard Pongo 23:30
And that was really one of the kind of leading forces behind the project after in the beginning, I was really only surrounded by family and friends. But then, throughout the years, I continued working, and I even went along with TV teams, TV channels that work in in, actually also in 2013. That's when I started doing it. So I would go with a team of like, TV journalists, TV reporters, but only for local TV. So they would only report on things that are absolutely inconsequential, in the, for the West of the rest of the world, maybe or even outside of the region. But I was like, Okay, how do I want to kind of recover or acquire or embed into as much experience of the country as I can. And not having lived here, there's so much that I don't know, right? So I can't tell what happens, one, because I just don't know, there's too much I don't know. So how do I get, when things are happening, so that I can see as much as I can, not just being also with my direct family and friends bubble, but I wanted to also be able to include things that impact people that I wouldn't get to because they're only my circles.
So going with these teams, TV teams, I would go to Yeah, when one body of water, one lake, would have very bad water quality, we would go report on that a market would open, you know, which, yeah, nobody would ever look at, we would go look at that and create, yeah we would go report, basically. And they would take me along, and I could photograph it however I wanted. So that allowed me to see so much of what's happening in the cities, which otherwise I would have never gone to, because it's not something you'd see, unless you pass by at the right moment, would go when a new tax would be created by the provincial government in Kinshasa, we would go see the motorbike taxi drivers, you know, all things that are important for people, but never get reported internationally. And for me, that was also a way of trying to get as much of these mundane and unimportant, so to say, events, or at least from the outside, because I had this belief or this hope that if you talk a lot about things that are not actually that big, and that much of a crisis, it would allow me hopefully, to relate and to tell a bigger story about everything that matters and about how people actually live. Yeah, that was also very formative. It really brought me to places where otherwise I wouldn't go.
Gianofer Fields 26:37
I think the lesson and I was talking to this with Margaret yesterday, it's that centering yourself, it's like when you stop centering yourself, in the events, and whatever's going on, you get a better picture of what's actually happening. Because one of our tenants in material culture is that you're not supposed to really interpret things to your own personal lens. So once you stop centering yourself, everything opens up.
Leonard Pongo 27:05
You know, it's funny that you voicing it out like this, because to me, this is still today in current projects, that's become a very important thing, you can actually, as an artist, create imagery that is very connected to the sort of images, you want to create the aesthetics that you like. But you don't have to do it based on only a certain set of specific values that you predetermined, you can also actually kind of follow the values of the place where you create the images, you can try and align, rather than try and put things in new context. And I feel that in the West, and in Western thought, that's almost impossible. I mean, you see, you see very good anthropologists do it. But in the history of scientific thought, it's always chopping down things, so that they match the model you have. And, you know, for me creating imagery and in Congo, it's also the history of photography in Congo is literally the colonizer creating images so that they can identify, categorize, and control people. So it's also a context where you have to be extremely careful. But just like you said before, looking at the everyday the boring every day, it has kind of this power that then you have to talk to people, and you have to ask them what's going on. But also, when Congo people are vocal, they're going to ask you, what you're going, what you're doing there, and what's going on with you being there. And so you have this dialogue that's going on. And that's sometimes more difficult. Sometimes, it's funny. But that means that you kind of, for me, that experience was more of being shoved around and going with that flow, and then realizing, wow, so there's so much happening that I otherwise would completely miss.
Leonard Pongo 29:15
And at the time, you know, in the past years or so working with, within the modern mythic bubble, I met with editors, also European editors where I would present my work, also for very big publications. And that one example really struck me because it showed me that sometimes the environment is just not the right one. The editor told me, Well, it's very interesting work and understand you your point of wanting to photograph in in the daily life and focus on things that actually happen to normal people that are not that exceptional or crisis related, but You know, when you on the highway, people drive, right, and they drive fast, and they all go in the same direction, they drive forward. And you know, when people stop, people stop only to look if there's an accident on the road, otherwise, they just keep on driving. And that shocked me so much. But I was like, Okay, I didn't, I didn't say anything, but it helped me understand that maybe that wasn't the right environment for these types of images, but that it was so needed if even people on top of that industry still think like that, I think it was like, five years ago, maybe.
Then what I was doing it was really hard to continue working like that, which also felt a lot better to me, I would have no shame about showing my work to my family or to friends or to people who asked me what I was doing because I'm very comfortable with it. And when you talk about crisis and this constant you know, angle, lens of depicting a country or an area based on upon its worst crisis, for me, it was it played, it was even nicer, not nicer, the more interesting. Because, of course, documenting with TV I was sometimes in very rough environments or faced with very rough truth, events, but then it was okay to document them or to try and create an image from that, because it wasn't, I never got there because of that idea of documenting a script I'd predetermined or that others had predetermined for me. And that meant, oh, I can actually look at all the above, the whole spectrum of life. And of course, it contains death, crisis, and everything in between, but it also contains love and partying, and you know, being stupid and being it contains faith and it contains taking care of each other and being angry at it. So instead of just trying to have this one layered narrative I could try and have a multilayer, a whole spectrum of emotions, and to navigate into that which to me feels a lot more like life.
Gianofer Fields 32:33
Where you're seeing people as people are not a commodity.
Leonard Pongo 32:37
Yeah, they're you know, they're my family, they also see me the same way as I'm seeing them, they see me so it's everything goes both ways. You can be an a**hole but they can be an a**hole too.
Gianofer Fields 32:49
And you hope so because that's when it's fun. Yeah, they're just it's a story building I mean, it's just something for you to roast them with later on.
Leonard Pongo 32:57
Exactly. And they will roast you too and there's many contexts where I photographed because I was angry, you know and other contexts, I photographed because an uncle told me Oh, I'm gonna show you something and you're gonna photograph, but then what they didn't tell me is that they all coordinated to be there and to try and get me as drunk as possible that night, with my dad's younger brother who was then my uncle closer to his age, being there at 6 a.m. the next morning to wake me up and make fun of me while I was still puking.
Gianofer Fields 33:36
Your family if they're like that, that's high, high, high roast, that's something I'm gonna aspire to.
Leonard Pongo 33:45
They have a level of roosting that is unreachable still today. I don't think I would be able to get there but, and they do it seamlessly. You know, they barely need any communication to see what's happening and how it's gonna all unfold.
Gianofer Fields 34:01
Well, when I was a kid, I shared a room with one of my sisters. And in the middle of the night she would 'Gianofer! Gianofer! Do you smell smoke? Do you smell smoke?' And I would awake, 'No! No!' And she would go 'Neither do I' and go back to sleep.
Leonard Pongo 34:19
Sort of adrenaline!
Gianofer Fields 34:21
Just wound tight! The five that we have are black and white, are all, is the entire series of black and white, or did you choose black and white for certain for a certain number of them and why did you make the choice for black and white for these images?
Leonard Pongo 34:40
No, I went through a whole process of processing images. For me it's also something important, this kind of craft and dance with the image, and trying to see you know, you've you have the experience and your photograph, and then you come back to looking at the images and wonder how to translate the record that you have into the kind of phrase, words you want to say, or whatever you want to articulate from the images. So for me, photography is really like more about the tool I can use to articulate a language that's not word-based, and that's not also concept- or idea-based. It's based on imagery. And I love the idea that imagery allows you to kind of transcend some preconceptions, some mental reflexes and categories that we have and can kind of embed. Yeah, I see images, I think, as containers. And here with The Uncanny, it's really, I wanted to embed an emotional response or experience.
And so I tried with color quite a lot. And I really didn't unlike what was happening in many contexts, it would make some elements very distracting, or it would make it look more theatrical than it was. And also came like from also personal aesthetical choices, from a place where in photography, I could relate a lot to this kind of Japanese 70s, you know, very emotional, emotional-centered, and very kind of biased and subjective approach to photography. And also, the way of processing images in the darkroom, where you have this very physical relationship where you add matter, you add light to some parts of the image, and you can really amplify one aspect. And so that's how eventually, I, even pictures that I thought were beautiful and in color, I always ended up processing everything in black and white and, with time also realized it kind of created that space, very experiential space where you were kind of removed from reality, you, at least I felt that having that black and white series, it was kind of a whole trip, you know, I could take people on to that trip, not trip, I don't mean trip, a physical trip, but really like, being on a trip on drugs or being on this idea of not just for the drugs, but I mean, this idea of being in this experience.
And you know, you I think the black and white, it's allowed me to kind of force somebody who's looking at the images to be swallowed by this, by this trip, swallowed by that experiential space, and inside of it, and there's a lot you can't really recognize or identify or define. And the that really helped me to, the, the aesthetic really helped me to kind of create a universe that's, that's standing on its own. And that's, you see it, and you see that there's something happening, but in order to kind of interact with it, you need to step inside. And once you step inside, you're like, 'I am somewhere else. Okay, new rules, okay, I have to go with that.' And I really liked that. It's like, you can actually also as a, as an author, you can kind of, you can't force the audience to look like you said, but if you want to look, it's going to be like this.
Gianofer Fields 39:02
And there's a timeless quality to it. One of my hobbies is that I so and I've learned over the years that it's not necessarily the shape of the dress, or the pant or the jacket that changes, it's the pattern. And so when you're looking at these black and white images, this could have happened last week, it could be happening in two weeks. It could have happened 15 years ago, it could have happened 12 years ago, there's this timeless, I do I get this feeling this connection with it, that if I hopped on the plane and went there, I would either be catching the beginning of the event or just getting there as it's ending. But what I'm seeing in these images is still happening.
Leonard Pongo 39:44
Yeah, that party you're seeing on the image, whatever. Image five is still going on. Oh, I love that the work of which was, I think, published already a while ago, the black and white images of like the good life in Kinshasa in the '70s, '80s. And you see people beautifully dressed. It's also in black and white with the flash, often at night, usually dressed enjoying life. And, of course, you see plenty of clues about the time because of the, the models of cars that you see or the type of clothing. But it is really true that is creating a scan of an archive that's timeless. And for me, that was part of creating a universe that functions according to its own rules. Also on it, you know, I told you in the beginning, I know I am slow and how slow I am. And I really worked on this project thinking, I don't know when it's gonna end or how, but I want to make it in a way that it doesn't need to follow a specific trend, or to answer a specific question that's very important now, no, it has to stand on its own. And it has to be difficult for people to identify or to play that kind of mental game of 'Yeah, I know that I recognize this.' I wanted it to stand outside of that. And also, in terms of discourse behind the project, it was very interesting now publishing, you know, the, so the publisher GOST Books, wrote a grant and I won the grant to publish the book, but I won it in the end of 2019. And so I was very critical of them. And I clearly I went on a call and asked them okay, well, are you, are you choosing to publish this work because of Black Lives Matter? Because, of course, it's a very good time for you as a publisher to publish something like this right now. And to turn your interest on Black people and Black bodies.
Gianofer Fields 41:55
Yes, Leonard! Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah.
Leonard Pongo 41:59
Because I think that's something else a very, you know, strange when people suddenly give interest to something only because they feel they have to, and to me, it feels non-genuine. And I was very happy to see that, because it took so long to publish the book, I had more opportunities to get to know the team behind the, you know, the publisher and the designer and the whole team. And to understand that they were actually into the timelessness of the work, and completely detached to, from giving, you know, politically involved answer to an issue that became important. The issue didn't become important at all, it just came in the limelight. But it was always as important as it's been in the past couple of years. So sort of, for me, that was also quite nice, having time to think about the images and about the work, to see that it could stand outside of these kind of waves of moments. And hopefully, that it's something I'm still going to be proud about for the years to come, you know.
Gianofer Fields 43:18
Well, it ties it to the title of the exhibition, Insistent Presence, on so many different levels. And that idea that I love so much that you challenged them on that because oftentimes, when you're put in that position of, this something going on socially, and are suddenly with a flavor of the month, where it becomes almost this, this expectation of the people who are requesting this view, that you should be somehow grateful, you should be grateful for this opportunity. So I love the fact that you push back and would like less, you know, let's set the guidelines for this. Let's clarify what this is, before I agree to anything. Because once again, am I becoming a commodity? Am, are you just paying attention to me now because you're gonna make money off of this?
Leonard Pongo 44:09
Exactly. And I mean, in this case, I've been more humbled by the response, because I'm ending up with a work that I've really carried all mostly on my shoulders, trying to, you know, find assignments that would get me to be in Congo or arranging residencies, saving my own money, working for years, so that I could have a few months there. But after 10 years of doing that, I have an editor that's basically paying for the whole process of making a book because he believes in the work where I have my book, my work published in I think, one of the best forms it could be easily spread and at no cost, which is with an involvement by the whole team. It was so much more than I thought, than I had expected. So it's a very humbling experience. But beyond that, the best is actually I had just a few advanced copies that they sent me that I could bring back to one of my uncles when I was, this summer when I was in Congo.
And also too, so 12 years ago, I had met somebody who became a chief in southern Congo, and I went to meet him to ask him about traditions for my next project, and actually brought the book because when I was there and seeing him 12 years ago, we were talking about the project. And he, he got exactly what the project is about. And what we were saying before, this idea of being in a space of experience and kind of trying to get beyond just representation and using the body as commodity, but trying to offer a possibility to relate to an experiential space. And I went to see him one morning to interview him. And then I brought him the book, and he asked us to pass by in the evening for a drink at his home. And he came back with the book and it was like, 'Dude, that's really, that's the way that's, that's a great way to do it. And I'm so proud of you for doing this. This is really good.' To me, that meant so much. You know, to have, okay, I can try and do things in a way that feels faithful to me, to my experiences and to my visions and my values, and it will seep through, also to somebody who's not necessarily related to the art world. And there was a thing that my uncle's appreciation for the book as well. Having that, that it can speak also outside of nonverbal is very important to me.
Gianofer Fields 47:04
You've been listening to Meet Me at the Chazen. Our guest, Leonard Pongo, is a photographer and creator of a series of photos entitled The Uncanny, currently on view as part of Insistent Presence: Contemporary African Art from the Chazen Collection, an exhibition currently on display in the Rowland Gallery at UW–Madison's Chazen Museum of Art. Pongo's book is entitled The Uncanny, published by GOST Books. Meet Me at the Chazen is a production of the Chazen Museum of Art on the campus of UW–Madison in Madison, Wisconsin.
For more information about the museum, its collections and exhibitions, visit chazen.wisc.edu. I'm your host, Gianofer Fields. Thank you for listening.