In the commissioned installation by Mansour Ciss Kanakassy, a Senegalese artist based in Berlin, you find yourself in an environment very different from the others in this Bienal: a bank.
The work Gondwana la fabrique du futur [Gondwana, the Factory of the Future] (2025) occupies a room measuring 6.50 by 6.20 meters. On the left, there is a world map plotted on the wall, an ATM, a map of Africa in front, a clip-art-style drawing, and a map of Brazil highlighting its different regions. Also on the left, an image of an elevator is projected.
The space is organized like a fictional bank. In front, a service counter about two meters long receives the visitor, identified by the emblem of the Quilombo Bank. Just behind, a large mural – over six meters wide by two and a half meters high – covers the entire wall. Against a light background, geometric patterns in red and black repeat, composed of parallel lines, zigzags, and lozenge shapes, inspired by Pan-African graphic matrices. This visual weave serves as the basis for a cartography connecting Africa, Brazil, and other regions of the diaspora, reinforcing the transcontinental character of the project.
Above the mural, five wall clocks aligned in a row evoke the environment of international financial institutions, each marking a different time zone and referencing the idea of global circulation. To the right, a metallic ATM, identified as Quilombo Express, completes the scenography, bringing the installation closer to the everyday experience of a bank.
Within the space, notes of an imaginary currency – the Afroquilombo – circulate, featuring Quilombo faces printed on them. Visitors can acquire them at the Quilombo Bank. As Billy Fowo writes in the catalog of this Bienal:
“Beyond its symbolism, this gesture is political, as it alludes to a futuristic currency, independent and free from international exchange markets, normally determined by supply and demand speculation and regulated by economic factors such as inflation, interest rates, and sociopolitical events.”
Coincidentally, during the same period as this Bienal, Brazil faces high external tariffs while simultaneously seeking to depolarize its economy through a common currency among the BRICS.
The project’s title refers to the supercontinent Gondwana, which once included most of the lands that today form the continents of the Southern Hemisphere, as well as India in the Northern Hemisphere. Its fragmentation occurred, among other events, with the separation of South America from Antarctica (forming the Drake Passage) and Antarctica from Australia. Thus, the idea of unity among colonized peoples takes precedence over strictly economic concepts.
Mansour also reminds us of the tedious or absurd experience of life under the capitalist system – such as the boring task of going to the bank – and how, even in institutionalized spaces, it is possible to find openings for freedom and the creation of new worlds.
His practice is linked to a long-term project, the Desberlinization Laboratory, created in 2001 by the artist in reference to the first Berlin Conference (1884–1885), when European rulers redrew the borders of the African continent, ignoring the interests of local populations and instituting new forms of colonial violence. In this context, Ciss produced the work-currency Afro (2001), conceived as a prototype of a Pan-African currency in response to colonial division. This proposal comes to new life in this Bienal with the Afroquilombo.