Géraldine Tobe Mutumande (*1992 in Kinshasa) graduated from the Institut des Beaux-Arts in Kinshasa in 2012. Since 2010 she sets out to conquer the spirituality of her ancestors which was a form of resilience and reconciliation with herself. Since 2019 the forthgoing project is named “Spirit of the Ancestors”. Tobe is the initiator of the project “Handicap mental” which launches art therapy workshops with patients in the psychiatric environment. She is the founder of the structure “LOBOKO YA SANSA”(LOSA Asbl). Tobe also works with black smoke which is the expression of an introspection, of an inner journey. It is the ex-pressure of an inner self-experience. Tobe tries to control black smoke, imposing its will and aesthetic sensitivity.

With her virtual reality experience “Kalunga”, Géraldine Tobe literally invites the public to view the world differently. Visitors take a seat on a large wooden chair ornamented with a skull and engraved with references to colonial horrors and injustice. They put on VR glasses and experience fragments from the life of a black enslaved boy who has been hanged. Kalunga is a virtual landscape made of film, photography and Tobe’s signature smoke paintings. It addresses the themes of justice and healing. The installation asks the viewer a fundamental question: did death give this boy the much-desired freedom? In October and November 2021, the installation was part of the exhibition “History’s Footnote: on Love and Freedom” at Marres – Huis voor Hedendaagse Cultuur, curated by Khanyisile Mbongwa.