The polyphonic work Ornaments and Crimes is part of Hearing Rooms, a series that incorporates both fiction and documentary in multifaceted installations. In Ornaments and Crimes, a “hearing room” was produced from a scene in a story in which an entity named εΐδωλον (eidolon) investigates a mysterious image disease at the end of the nineteenth century. Their investigation leads to hallucination—to the Congo Free State—with images oscillating between crimes committed along the Matadi-Léopoldville railway and the ornate facades of Art Nouveau buildings in Brussels. Two drawings are part of this investigation—fragments of chryselephantine statues exhibited in the Congolese pavilion of the International Exposition of 1897: Mysterious Sphinxb y Charles Van der Stappen and Caress of the Swan by Philippe Wolfers. A listening device installed in the hearing room presents a sound composition produced from recordings made in the former Hotel ABC (Hotel Alimentation du Bas-Congo), built at the beginning of the twentieth century with prefabricated Art Nouveau iron elements, which was later rehabilitated and repurposed as a courthouse in the small Congolese town of Mbanza-Ngungu, along the railway line.
Ornaments and Crimes, 2023. Multichannel sound installation, book, drawings, wood, speakers, raspberry Pi and archival documents.
With recordings made by ayoh kré Duchâtelet in Mbanza-Ngungu and Kinshasa in Congo in 2022, and excerpts from “Departure” and “Virginia” by DRC Music, “Congo Avenir” by Tabu ley Rochereau, “Godee” by Docteur Nico, L’African Fiesta, Tabu Ley Rochereau and Kwami. ayoh kré Duchâtelet thanks Mouhamad Tshimbalanga for his help and Séverine Janssen and Flavien Gillié of BNA-BBOT for their support. Courtesy of the artist. Archives Hubert Droogmans I ImageStudio © Royal Museums of Art and History, Brussels I King Baudouin Foundation.