For his new performance Tand des Tijds, writer and playwright Tim Natens draws inspiration from the figure of Gerard Soete. Soete was a Belgian police commissioner tasked in 1961 with disposing of the body of executed Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. In carrying this out, he confiscated some of Lumumba's incisors, which he then kept as private property-possibly as morbid souvenirs.
The brutal assassination of Lumumba, the first democratically elected prime minister of an independent Congo, had an undeniable impact on the country's development. Many African countries at the time were just on the verge of regaining their independence and shaping their young nation-state, making the assassination a sinister and symbolic act. In that light, Noam Chomsky calls the murder of Lumumba by the Belgian state one of the worst crimes of the 20th century. To what extent was Gerard Soete involved in this murder, and what questions about the relationship between colonizer and colonized are given a material dimension through his possession of Lumumba's only remains?
In Tand des Tijds, the filmmaker takes a dark piece of history and touches on a highly sensitive subject that lives on in the present. After all, the former relations between Belgium and Congo-between former oppressor and oppressed-are alive and well in the current social debates around decolonization and racism. Natens' performance deftly plays into these discussions, outlining Soete's problematic possession of a bizarre and sinister relic as a personal manifestation of a collective trauma.
by and with: Tim Natens, Bart Capelle, Jovial Mbenga, ruimtevaarders, more tbc
production: Moussem Nomadic Arts Centre
coproduction: Antigone, Monty
with the support of: the Flemish Government, vormingscentrum Destelheide
illustration: Mario Debaene
For his new performance Tand des Tijds, writer and playwright Tim Natens draws inspiration from the figure of Gerard Soete. Soete was a Belgian police commissioner tasked in 1961 with disposing of the body of executed Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. In carrying this out, he confiscated some of Lumumba's incisors, which he then kept as private property-possibly as morbid souvenirs.
The brutal assassination of Lumumba, the first democratically elected prime minister of an independent Congo, had an undeniable impact on the country's development. Many African countries at the time were just on the verge of regaining their independence and shaping their young nation-state, making the assassination a sinister and symbolic act. In that light, Noam Chomsky calls the murder of Lumumba by the Belgian state one of the worst crimes of the 20th century. To what extent was Gerard Soete involved in this murder, and what questions about the relationship between colonizer and colonized are given a material dimension through his possession of Lumumba's only remains?
In Tand des Tijds, the filmmaker takes a dark piece of history and touches on a highly sensitive subject that lives on in the present. After all, the former relations between Belgium and Congo-between former oppressor and oppressed-are alive and well in the current social debates around decolonization and racism. Natens' performance deftly plays into these discussions, outlining Soete's problematic possession of a bizarre and sinister relic as a personal manifestation of a collective trauma.
