System K

Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is a vast, chaotic mega-city of 12 million. Water is privatized and the electric grid is capricious. Here, street artists’ performances are wildly creative, angry, irreverent, often shocking. With names like Kong Astronaute, Strombo, and Kill Bill, they masterfully repurpose urban detritus (computer parts, TV sets, bullet shells, machetes) and work with fire and paint, wax and blood — to critique government corruption, Western exploitation (their nation was literally once the private property of Belgium’s King Léopold II), and entrenched poverty. SYSTEM K reveals a vibrant, raw, politically astute world of performance art the likes of which exists nowhere else on earth.