Leonard Pongo, Belgium 1988
All photos: A Certain Kind of Energy Series
About:
Leonard Pongo graduated from Maastricht University with a BA in Social Sciences. During and after a training in documentary photography, Pongo worked in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and is currently focusing on South-East Asia and Congo DR. His long term project “The Uncanny” started in Congo DR in 2011 has earned him several awards and international recognition. His work is featured in the Guardian, CNN, and several online publications. Pongo is also a tutor at Obscura festival.
A Certain Kind of Energy
This personal documentary is an immersion in the daily life of Congo DR. This story offers a vision of the country, as experienced from within. This series is an interpretation of the broad, collateral impact of the country’s long-running conflicts rather than a focus on its “direct” hits.
This project arose from a need to see my country from a different point of view than the often-depicted crises. I used my familiarity with the surroundings to tap into the openness of local people, who were very willing to share some of their most private moments with me. This allowed me to depict my country intimately and subjectively, not trying to deliver truth but striving to relate to a peoples’ reality and to reconstruct my own. (copyright Leronard Pongo)
