Image: MEWO Kunsthalle, Memmingen
MEWO Kunsthalle in Memmingen will open its latest exhibition, 'Schatten der Vergangenheit', with a performance on 31 July 2026 at 7 p.m. The project brings together Beverley Onyangunga, Filip Anić and Kennedy Muntanga in a work that combines dance and visual art while addressing the colonial history of the Congo Free State and the trauma that continues to reverberate from it.
According to the museum’s announcement, the opening evening is framed as a live event rather than a conventional vernissage. The performance is described as central to the project, with choreography by Kennedy Muntanga and contributions from Onyangunga and Anić that extend the work across photography, drawing, film and painted canvases. Admission to the MEWO Kunsthalle is free.
The exhibition forms the first chapter of the ongoing performance-and-exhibition project 'Shadows of the Free State', which the artists developed for venues in Germany, the United Kingdom and Croatia. Memmingen is identified as the first stop for the evolving project, after which it will be shown in Great Britain and Croatia. The MEWO Kunsthalle presentation runs from 1 August to 22 November 2026.
The project takes the Congo Free State, which existed from 1885 to 1908, as its point of departure. In the institution’s description, the state is presented as formally independent but under the absolute control of the Belgian King Leopold II as his private property. The source text also states that crimes committed during that period triggered early international protests, while colonial exploitation of people and resources continued beyond that era.
The exhibition is built around the idea that the past remains present not only through historical writing but also through lived experience and inherited trauma. Onyangunga’s manipulated photographs add red-dyed limbs to historical black-and-white images, a visual reference to the brutality of a regime that punished even minor offences by amputation. Anić’s drawings record what happens during the performance as the dancers transfer colour onto the canvases and leave traces behind.
Live performance, however, remains the project’s centre. In the gallery, it will be represented through documentation in the form of a film and the painted canvases produced during the performance. The artists’ biographies in the announcement situate the collaboration across different artistic backgrounds and locations: Beverley Onyangunga, born in London in 1995, studied Fine Art at Chelsea College of Arts and lives and works in London; Filip Anić, born in Osijek in 2001, is currently pursuing a master’s degree at the Academy of Arts and Culture in Osijek; and Kennedy Junior Muntanga, born in Ndola, moved to Leeds as a child, trained in dance there, and graduated from the Rambert School of Ballet and Contemporary Dance in London in 2019.
Alongside the opening performance, MEWO Kunsthalle has also listed a digital guided tour of 'Schatten der Vergangenheit' for 17 September 2026 at 7 p.m., with registration by email. The exhibition remains on view in Memmingen until 22 November 2026.
