Léonard Pongo

Léonard Pongo is showing Tales from the Source at Wexner Center for the Arts now through October 31. It's running in The Box, and since it's a screening, you can drop in whenever fits your schedule rather than committing to a single night.

Pongo is a Belgian Congolese photographer and filmmaker whose work—across photography, film, and installation—looks at the social, political, and environmental realities of the Democratic Republic of Congo. He's shown internationally at the Venice Biennale, DocLisboa, Tate Modern, Bamaka Encounters, and BOZAR. Tales from the Source is a 39-minute HD video that transforms DRC landscapes using multispectral imaging technologies—the kind of tools usually reserved for scientific research—and pairs them with an immersive original score by Bear Bones, Lay Low, the experimental music project of Venezuelan-born, Belgium-based artist Ernesto González.

The film fits into Pongo's broader practice, which examines contemporary DRC while resisting reductive narratives of conflict or crisis and drawing inspiration from Congolese stories and traditions. It was produced by Twenty Nine Studio & Production, the Brussels-based company founded by artist Sammy Baloji, whose own exhibition is also on view at the Wexner Center through February 14, 2027.

Admission is free for all audiences, so you can catch the screening without worrying about a ticket. It runs through October 31 at The Box in the Wexner Center, in Columbus.