This book offers a first report on the activities of the Cercle d’art des travailleurs de plantation congolaise (CATPC), an association based in Lusanga, in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

African art history continues to be dominated by Western scholars who set the tone for the field. Their cultural frames of reference, which they cast as universal, exert influence on the interpretation of African art, social conditions, and cultural milieu. The knowledge produced in most institutions and academic or independent publishers outside of Africa communicates the extant system in place within those localities. In other words, the audience for such forms of knowledge production is not (necessarily) in Africa.

RAW Académie was developed in Dakar to create a space of experimental teaching and collaboration, of deconstruction and exposure, of knowledge and nourishment. Koyo Kouoh, founder of RAW Material Company, wished for curatorial inquiry and critical writing to join artistic thinking at this site of international encounters. During these two-month long sessions that take place twice a year, young artists and