Coumba Samba: Stars and Stripes

Coumba Samba’s installations draw on forms from the global built environment to expose the social, political, and economic structures they represent. In Stars and Stripes, Samba (b. 2000) uses the geometric shapes and bold colors of modernist abstraction to explore the entanglement of resource extraction with systems of power. Here, sculptures modeled after depleted uranium shells are painted in the colors of the flags of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Namibia, Niger, and the United States. By using elements of national identity—stripes, colors, and graphics—Samba exposes the violent histories they conceal, deconstructing the symbols and forms that uphold the global military-industrial complex and its development of nuclear weapons.

The African nations Samba references were among the world’s principal sources of uranium ore during the Cold War, when many of their mines were operated by foreign companies. Reverberations of past wars also run through this installation. For example, the Shinkolobwe mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo supplied most of the uranium ore for the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. In 2003, allegations that Iraq had sought five hundred tons of uranium ore from Niger were used to justify the US invasion of Iraq. Samba views the global nuclear order as dependent on the geography of extraction that was set up by colonial powers. In addition to not reaping the full economic benefits of their natural resources, these African nations bear the brunt of the related environmental degradation. By taking aim at the racist global hierarchies of the colonial period, Samba exposes the ongoing impact on African people, places, and sovereignty today.

Coumba Samba: Stars and Stripes is organized by Rujeko Hockley, Guest Curator, with Antonia Pocock, Curatorial Assistant.

Major support for Coumba Samba: Stars and Stripes is provided by the John R. Eckel, Jr. Foundation.