Princia Matungulu

Kinu Kiangu (My Mortar)

The laborious process of ku twanga (pounding) has been the moment where my mother has given me many lessons on the morals, skills and values that I am to acquire as a Congolese woman. Managing the kinu (mortar and pestle) has been one of these lessons – as it is one of the primary things BaLuba Congolese girls learn. To manage the kinu would mean you are strong, it would mean you can prepare food for your husband and children. To have this large, wooden tool in your kitchen would make you a ‘proper Congolese woman’. At least that’s what my mother taught me.

In Kinu Kiangu, I engage with my fascination of this kinship object, this practice, ritual or norm. It is desirable for me to be identified as a Congolese woman, however, in performing ku twanga, it reinforces the dominant patriarchy of Congolese culture (as with many other African diasporic cultures) – the notion that a proper women’s place is in the kitchen or performing domestic duties. For me, the process of weaving serves as a silent protest. Silent but forceful in the physical tearing away, in the deconstructing and reconstructing of the material in use (in this case also referring to the familial object) to occupy a space – tangible and/or intangible – and to assert a meaning that it previously could (or did) not.