JOHN K COBRA
/ SPACES OF CORELLATION
Roland Gunst (also known as John K Cobra), is a self-taught conceptual artist, filmmaker and musician of Belgian-Congolese (D.R.C.) descent. He lives and works between Belgium and Singapore.
His work emerges from an autobiographical perspective: being raised in a bicultural family in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and migrating to Belgium at around the age of 12; and the daily confrontation with racism, both verbal and physical.
Through performances, films, music, sculptures, installations and mixed media, he explores Afro-European liberation narratives and strategies to counter the oppression of (body) identity and the trauma instilled by capitalism and its rigid categories and hierarchies. Even spatial architecture (monuments, avenues, etc.) is used to create social groups that serve capitalism. Architecture is always programmed with an ideology.
His strategies are based on what Prof. Cecil Fromont calls 'spaces of correlation': spaces of similarity between European and African cultural traditions that developed separately but used similar concepts of liberation and practices of critique. It creates a unifying fabric for humanity.
He merges social architecture (communities) and spatial architecture (habitats) to create a new type of fluid, trans-architecture that functions as a site of memory and critique of oppression. An organic architecture of flesh. A moving body as habitat.
By creating disruptive hybrid concepts and media, he defies the boundaries that define body, identity, community, habitat, culture, history and human existence.
Drawing inspiration from African and European art history, anthropology, psychology, philosophy, mythology, spiritual and medicinal practices, he revisits ancient, forgotten concepts that remain highly relevant to solve contemporary societal challenges.
He works with symbolic materials that represent the "spaces of correlation" between Europe and Africa, such as human hair, copper, iron, aluminium, rubber and wood. These materials are all symbols of power that have been used in colonial and anti-colonial strategies.
His research is a collaboration with Esther Severi (*1983), a dramaturge from Brussels.