ULusófona's Panorama of the Congo exhibition featured in The New York Times

Centred on the 1913 Congo Panorama, this exhibition opened on 28 November 2025 and will be open to the public until 27 September 2026 at the Africa Museum in Tervuren, Belgium, and is referenced by The New York Times as “A new exhibition at the Africa Museum in Belgium takes a frank look at a large-scale propaganda painting and the institution’s own past role in adding to the spin”; “They Used Art as ‘Fake News’ to Sell Colonialism. This Show Is a Fact Check”

The exhibition is based on research and decolonial methodology developed through the FilmEU-RIT pilot research project 'Congo-VR: Decolonising the Congo Panorama – An Artistic Investigation of Virtual Heritage', a collaborative partnership between Lusófona University (Portugal), LUCA School of Arts (Belgium) and the Institute of Art, Design + Technology (IADT, Ireland).

This work produced the first comprehensive photographic survey of the Congo Panorama using 810 high-resolution photographs. The process culminated in a 7.39-gigapixel digital reproduction. This digitisation also allowed for the creation of two immersive VR experiences that restructure the panorama through a decolonial perspective, providing new ways to critically approach its visual rhetoric and historical implications.

News around the world

NOS Nieuws   De Standaard   vrt nws   Le Soir