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In the initial period of the morning, a young boy wanders through the alleys of Goma. He chooses an incorrect path and encounters outlaws. In his household, his father switches TV channels while his mother checks bags of flour. Silence prevails. The stillness is interrupted only by crackles on the radio.

By evening, Baraka is sitting on the shore of Lake Kivu, looking south to Bukavu and east towards Rwanda, seeing no promise in either direction.

Here begins the introduction to the comic strip depicting Goma's uncertainties, the first comic by a 31-year-old visual artist, Edizon Musavuli, released earlier this year. The story illustrates daily challenges in Goma through the perspective of a child.

Prominent Congolese artists such as Barly Baruti, Fifi Mukuna and Papa Mfumu’Eto, who seized the public’s imagination in comic strips in the past, mainly worked abroad or in Kinshasa, a city over 1,000 miles from Goma. But there are few contemporary comics located in or about the Democratic Republic of the Congo produced by Congolese artists.

Creativity offers optimism. It's a beginning.

“My art journey started since I could hold a pencil,” Musavuli states of his journey as an artist. He began to follow 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, curated with a cultural institute in Goma. “The event was significant. People reacted strongly how everyone reacted to it,” says Musavuli.

But just a year later, the violent M23 militia, supported by Rwanda, returned in eastern DRC and shattered Goma’s fragile art scene.

“Artists in Goma are really dependent on international exhibitions like that,” he says. “Without them, it will seem like we don’t exist. That is the current situation right now.”

When M23 seized Goma in January this year, the city’s artistic venues faltered alongside its economy. “Expression fosters optimism, it offers a beginning, but our circumstances here doesn’t change. So people in Goma are not really interested any more,” says Musavuli.

Talented individuals and art have long been relegated to the periphery of the state agenda. “Art is not something the government values,” he says.

Leveraging Instagram, he began posting personal and collective experiences of Congolese life in the form of cartoons. In one post, recounting his childhood, he labeled an interactive story: “I’m from where you learn to run before you walk.”

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

It was against this backdrop that the comic narrative was created. The story is charged with underlying messages, highlighting how ordinary routines have been eroded and replaced with perpetual insecurity.

Yet Musavuli insists the short comic was not meant as explicit political commentary: “I am not a political artist or activist but I say what people around me are thinking. This is the way I do my art.”

We might not have power but inaction is so much worse. If your voice is heard by two people, it’s something.

Asked whether he feels able to express himself freely under occupation, he says: “People can speak openly in Congo, but will you be free after you speak?”

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

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

According to Musavuli, some artists have come under duress to create pro-M23 content out of apprehension for their lives. “If you are an artist with a voice in Goma, the M23 can use you, sometimes by force, or the artists make that decision to work with M23,” he says. “It’s complicated to judge. But I cannot allow myself to do something like that.”

While danger is one challenge, surviving financially through the arts is another hurdle. “It’s a problem in Congo that people don’t buy art. Many of the artists here have to do other things to survive.” Musavuli works as a cartoonist for a blog site.

But he adds: “I’m also not doing art to sell it.”

Regardless of the risks and the financial uncertainties, Musavuli says he wants to continue making work that gives expression to the overlooked people of Goma. “We are a resilient population – this is not the first time we have been through this.

“We might not have power but inaction is so much worse. Although your voice is heard by just two people, it’s something.”

Towards the finish of this visual narrative, Baraka walks alone down an quiet road, his head held high. “The future could appear exactly the same,” he says, “but I persist moving. Believing in better days is already pushing against.”