Fotoreproductie van een tekening, voorstellende een militair instructiekamp te Kinshasa before 1899

This is a photogravure of a drawing representing a military instruction camp in Kinshasa. Although anonymous, the artist of this image made it to accompany a book published around the turn of the 20th century. The photogravure reproduces a scene of colonial occupation. We see what are likely to be the offices and barracks of the colonial army, flying a European flag. The drawing itself is rather artless, its primary function is to document what this place looked like to a European audience. It offers clues to understanding not just the physical characteristics of the buildings but how Europeans wanted to represent their colonial projects. What visual codes are put in place to justify and normalize the imperial project? Scholars of colonialism, political scientists, and cultural historians have done much to unpack how these processes of representation work. Visual and textual sources can be understood together to offer a critical reflection on the way the European institutions projected power during this period.