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In the initial moments of the morning, Baraka wanders through the streets of Goma. He makes a mistaken turn and runs into thieves. In his household, his father scrolls through TV channels while his mother tallies bags of flour. Silence prevails. The stillness is broken only by static on the radio.

As night falls, Baraka is resting on the shore of Lake Kivu, staring south to Bukavu and east towards Rwanda, finding no hope in either direction.

This is the introduction to a visual story set in turbulent Goma, the debut comic by a 31-year-old visual artist, Edizon Musavuli, shared earlier this year. The story portrays everyday struggles in Goma through the viewpoint of a child.

Influential Congolese artists such as Barly Baruti, Fifi Mukuna and Papa Mfumu’Eto, who seized the public’s interest in comic strips in the past, mostly worked abroad or in Kinshasa, a city more than a thousand miles from Goma. But there are scarce contemporary comics based in or about the Democratic Republic of the Congo created by Congolese artists.

Art gives hope. It's a beginning.

“I've been illustrating since I could hold a pencil,” Musavuli states of his journey as an artist. He began to pursue the craft dedicatedly only after finishing high school, joining at a media institute in Nairobi. His studies, however, were cut short by financial difficulties.

His first personal display was in January 2020, organised with a cultural institute in Goma. “It was a really big exhibition. People reacted strongly how everyone engaged to it,” says Musavuli.

But just a year later, the ruthless M23 militia, supported by Rwanda, reemerged in eastern DRC and disrupted Goma’s vulnerable art scene.

“Creatives in the city are really relying on international exhibitions like that,” he says. “If they’re not around, it will appear like we don’t exist. This is the reality right now.”

When M23 captured Goma in January this year, the city’s cultural hubs declined alongside its economy. “Expression fosters optimism, it offers a beginning, but our reality here doesn’t change. So people in Goma are not really engaged any more,” says Musavuli.

Creators and expression have long been pushed to the edges of the state agenda. “Art is not something the government values,” he says.

Turning to Instagram, he began disseminating private and public experiences of Congolese life in the form of cartoons. In one post, recounting his childhood, he titled an interactive story: “My homeland teaches running before walking.”

In one reel, which has since attracted more than 10,000 views, he is seen working on an ongoing painting, while firearms are heard in the background.

Amid these conditions that Baraka and the Unpredictable Life of Goma was created. The story is loaded with underlying messages, emphasizing how normal activities have been removed and replaced with perpetual insecurity.

Yet Musavuli maintains the short comic was not meant as overt political commentary: “I don't consider myself a political artist or activist however I say what people around me are thinking. This is the way I do my art.”

We might not have power but not doing anything is so much worse. When someone hears you, it’s something.

Inquired about he feels able to express himself freely under control, he says: “There is freedom of speech in Congo, but can you remain unharmed after you speak?”

Producing art that appears too oppositional of M23 or the government can be dangerous, he says: “In Kinshasa it’s normal to talk about everything that’s wrong with the rebels. But in Goma it’s standard to not do that because it’s not protected for you.

“From an administrative perspective, we are cut off from the ‘actual’ Congo,” he says. Unlike other cities in the North and South Kivu provinces of the DRC, Goma remains under full control by the M23.

According to Musavuli, some artists have come under coercion to create favorable content out of apprehension for their lives. “For those with talent with a voice in Goma, the M23 can use you, sometimes by intimidation, or the artists make that decision to work with M23,” he says. “It’s complicated to judge. But I cannot let myself to do something like that.”

Although instability is one challenge, making a living through the arts is another hurdle. “It’s a problem in Congo that people don’t buy art. Most of the artists here have to do other things to survive.” Musavuli works as a cartoonist for a digital outlet.

But he adds: “I’m also not doing art to generate income.”

In spite of the risks and the financial uncertainties, Musavuli says he wants to continue creating work that gives voice to the marginalized people of Goma. “Our community is strong – this is not the first time we have been through this.

“Even without control but not doing anything is so much worse. Even if your voice is heard by just two people, it’s something.”

Towards the finish of the comic story, Baraka walks alone down an empty road, his head held high. “Tomorrow might look exactly the same,” he says, “but I persist moving. Holding on to hope is already resisting.”