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Kriss Munsya reclaims memories of childhood trauma and racism

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Kriss Munsya reclaims memories of childhood trauma and racism

He was road-tripping with his parents and his older sister in Germany. They stopped at a really low budget hotel on the highway. He was six years old. He remembers he couldn’t sleep that night because of the sound of the highway. The next day, he played soccer with his farther in the parking lot, while his sister and mom were hanging out on the grass. Suddenly the ball rolled towards the fence, and as he went to collect it, on the other side of the highway, he could see another highway hotel. But that one was a fancy one. He could see rich white families in the pool. He remembers the patio was full of flowers. He was really jealous, and maybe a bit mad at his parents for staying in that low budget one. He wanted to be on the other side of the highway. It took him years to understand that he was exactly where he was supposed to be.

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1854 Photography
Kriss Munsya reclaims memories of childhood trauma and racism

He was a seven-year-old Black kid in predominantly white primary school. And like a lot of kids of his age, he liked to look under girls’ skirts. He was never taught to look under girls’ skirts. But from a young age, he was taught in the recess yard that he was different. Young white kids didn’t want to touch him because they were afraid to be “dirty” and “ugly”. So logically, he thought that the other black kids were also “dirty” and “ugly” like him. So when he wanted to look under little girls skirts, he would only pick white girls. Growing up, this self-hate is what shaped his education, his views, his fantasies. His sexuality has been created by and for whiteness. Now that he’s older he has tried to reclaim his past. By accepting his own sexual bias, transforming them into something that will fit his vision. By replacing whiteness with Blackness in his memories, he thinks he will heal faster, change for the greater, but memory is a tricky thing.

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1854 Photography
Kriss Munsya reclaims memories of childhood trauma and racism

He was in a bar, talking to a white person, who was saying how safe they felt walking in the streets of Portland at night. They said that if someone said something disrespectful or sexist to them, there was another person to defend them. Before he could say anything, another person at the table behind intervened. A black woman, who overheard them. She explained that she never had the same treatment, she said that whenever someone was disrespectful or violent or racist with her in the streets, there was no one to defend her. Same city, different experiences. He felt bad to not have realised this before. After all the shitty and traumatic experiences he’s been through, it never occurred to him that black women had the double punishment. Growing up as a male in a patriarchy brought him his fair load of privileges. He couldn’t see them until late, really late. It reminded him of a story, the story of the Scarlet Ribbons.

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1854 Photography
Kriss Munsya reclaims memories of childhood trauma and racism

That night, he came back home after seeing his group of friends. Mostly white people. He remembers what they said that night: a lot of racist bullshit. He entered the bathroom, it was dark. The light was broken. He couldn’t see his reflection in the mirror. The mirror was black. And for a few seconds, he actually hoped he disappeared. He was afraid to see what was in the mirror. Someone he always tried to hide from others, but mostly from himself.

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1854 Photography
Kriss Munsya reclaims memories of childhood trauma and racism

He grew up in an African family in a predominantly white environment. From a young age, his friends and even sometimes his family made it very clear that he wasn’t Black enough, or too white. He was a Black kid trying to survive his own insecurities and problems while under pressure to be someone he wasn’t. Stuck somewhere in between. Later, as a teenager, girls that he wanted to date repeatedly called him a Bounty [chocolate bar], white inside and black outside. That statement was hurtful. He was failing at being himself. This changed his relationship with Black women. He always felt like he was failing them. So he tried to avoid them as much as possible. It also changed his relationships with Black men. As a teenager, he never really understood the concept of community. He didn’t have one. He had his family and his friends. His friends came from all different backgrounds. One day, he was with who he thought were his friends. They had met another group of teenagers on a neighborhood soccer field to play. They started arguing about who was going to play next and things escalated quickly. A fight was inevitable. Most of the kids there were white or brown. There were only two Black kids. One in each group. One of his friends yelled to everyone that the two Black kids should fight to decide who was going to take the field. They physically pushed them toward each other. They fought. He won, but left. He went home and cried. He had no idea why he was crying. Now he knows. Racism is not only about discrimination against Black people, it also teaches us to hate each other. It took him years to not see other Black men as threats but as people to be interested in, to talk to and to love. Now that he’s older he wants to reclaim that past he never had. He’s trying to reimagine his memories with acceptance by the community. But memory is a tricky one. There might be some glitches and bugs. And starting to dig the past always brings up unexpected things.

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All images © Kriss Munsya.

The photographer and filmmaker’s first personal body of work revisits experiences from his upbringing as a Black child in a predominantly white environment

It is the summer of 1991. Five-year-old Kriss Munsya is road-tripping with his family in Germany. They stop at a motel, where he plays football in the car park with his father, while his mother and older sister hang out on a nearby patch of grass. As he runs to retrieve the ball, which has rolled towards the fence, Munsya catches a glance of another hotel on the other side of the highway. He sees a beautiful swimming pool, a wealthy white family lounging beside it, and a patio full of flowers. He wishes he was on the other side.

Kriss Munsya is describing one of his early memories, which informed the images of his latest series, The Eraser: “I picked key moments from my childhood that made me the Black person I am today,” Munsya explains. The artist was born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo but relocated to Belgium with his family when he was three years old. They were one of the only Black families in a predominantly white neighbourhood.

“I had all these memories, and I thought, ‘What would happen if I was able to erase them? What if I had a machine that could erase all this trauma?” Inspired by Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind – a 2004 film about a couple who use new technology to erase one another from their memories – Munsya imagined a world in which these traumatic experiences could be retracted.

Usually, Munsya’s chosen medium is film. This is the first time that he has used photography to reflect on his personal experiences. “I was fortunate enough to be able to take the time and think about my life,” says Munsya, who recently went through a course of therapy. “It can take a long time, and it is a privilege to be able to do that.” Many people assume that it was difficult to make personal work about trauma, he says, admiring how he can share work about it with such ease. “I didn’t rush through these traumatic experiences, I processed them really slowly. It was really therapeutic, because I did it in the right way for me,” he says. “Those scars are healed now, so I can talk about them.”

Adorned with flowers and ribbons, covered in mirrored glitter, or peaking out of draped fabrics, Munsya’s subjects are often faceless, so that the viewer can project themselves onto them. Like the flowers that run through the work, memories can have multiple meanings. “Nothing is just happy, or sad,” says Munsya. “When something is ‘Hollywood’ – as in, where there are good people and bad people – it’s not reflective of reality.” Showing these personal interpretations of his experiences of racism will provoke different reactions from different people. “That’s the closest I can get to my real life,” he says.

krissmunsya.com

Marigold Warner

Deputy Editor

Marigold Warner worked as an editor at BJP between 2018 and 2023. She studied English Literature and History of Art at the University of Leeds, followed by an MA in Magazine Journalism from City, University of London. Her work has been published by titles including the Telegraph Magazine, Huck, Elephant, Gal-dem, The Face, Disegno, and the Architects Journal.