267

The title refers to the 267 people who were on display in the “Congolese Village” at the 1897 World’s Fair in Tervuren, Belgium. This was, in essence, an immersive experience for fair-goers, but one in which Congolese had no agency. Rather they, my ancestors, were imprisoned in a human zoo while millions of people came to gaze at them. But what if the gaze is inverted? If the viewer is encaged by looking? Meditating on the political act of looking, 267 interweaves archival clips and poetry to create a different sort of immersive experience through which contemporary viewers encounter Congo from a different perspective