The Balot sculpture is a carved wood ancestral power figure made in 1931, an important symbol of resistance of the Pende people against the colonial plantation regime. It is in the collection of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond. In 2020, CATPC asked the museum for a temporary loan of the Balot sculpture.  

When the museum initially refused, CATPC claimed digital ownership of the sculpture. A series of 306 NFTs was minted by the artists to reclaim their lost cultural heritage, to take back its power. With its sales the cooperative buys back plantation land, depleted by 100 years of monoculture, to restore the sacred forest of their ancestors by replanting and introducing biodiversity, thus providing autonomy and food security for workers in one of the most impoverished areas of the world. Each NFT buys back one hectare of depleted plantation land. 

The Balot NFT is not only to be seen as a radical new model of digital restitution, and as a new tool for decolonization but also underlines the political, spiritual and cultural significance of this sculpture to the people living and working on the plantations in Lusanga.  

In anticipation of their participation in the 2024 Venice Biennale, in collaboration with Dutch artist Renzo Martens, CATPC asked for a loan again. This time the VMFA accepted the loan request. The sculpture will be part, of Lusanga, of the 2024 Venice Biennale. This a perfect illustration of CATPC’s definition of art as a ‘living force borne of sacred Earth and art-making as a sacred endeavour.’ 

CATPC: ‘Every purchase helps to further unleash the powers of the sculpture and to re-fulfil its original functions: to protect our land and our people.’ 

CATPC (Cercle d’Art des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise) is a cooperative of plantation workers based in Lusanga, Democratic Republic of Congo. Since its foundation in 2014, CATPC has been working steadily to make art, using its income to purchase ancestral lands once confiscated by Unilever and its subsidiaries.