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Axis Gallery, 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair, Somerset House, London, 2015

Sammy Baloji’s installation “Gorilla territory” for Somerset House weaves together strains of past and present realities in the eastern Congo (DRC). Here, the world’s deadliest conflict since World War 2 has caused 5.4 million deaths and displaced 2 million people. Refugees camp in the Virungu National Park, beneath the same vista of volcanoes that forms the backdrop of Carl Akeley’s famous gorilla diorama at the American Museum of Natural History. So influential was Akeley’s expedition that a national park was …