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Throughout the initial hours of the morning, the protagonist roams through the alleys of Goma. He takes a wrong turn and encounters bandits. At his residence, his father switches TV channels while his mother checks bags of flour. Words are absent. The silence is interrupted only by static on the radio.

When dusk arrives, Baraka is positioned on the shore of Lake Kivu, staring south to Bukavu and east towards Rwanda, finding no promise in either direction.

Here begins the opening to a visual story set in turbulent Goma, the first comic by a young visual artist, Edizon Musavuli, released earlier this year. The story illustrates common hardships in Goma through the viewpoint of a child.

Influential Congolese artists such as Barly Baruti, Fifi Mukuna and Papa Mfumu’Eto, who grasped the public’s interest in comic strips in the past, mainly worked abroad or in Kinshasa, a city significantly distant from Goma. But there are scarce contemporary comics located in or about the Democratic Republic of the Congo created by Congolese artists.

Expression provides light. It represents a foundation.

“I've been illustrating since I could hold a pencil,” Musavuli states of his journey as an artist. He began to follow the craft seriously only after finishing high school, enrolling at a media institute in Nairobi. His studies, however, were halted by economic challenges.

His first solo exhibition was in January 2020, organised with a cultural institute in Goma. “The event was significant. People reacted strongly how everyone responded to it,” says Musavuli.

But just a year later, the violent M23 militia, backed by Rwanda, returned in eastern DRC and upended Goma’s delicate art scene.

“Artists in Goma are really dependent on foreign exhibitions like that,” he says. “In their absence, it will seem like we don’t exist. That is the current situation right now.”

When M23 took over Goma in January this year, the city’s artistic venues weakened alongside its economy. “Art gives hope, it's a foundation, but our situation here doesn’t change. So people in Goma are not really engaged any more,” says Musavuli.

Artists and creativity have long been pushed to the margins of the state agenda. “Art is not something the government prioritises,” he says.

Using Instagram, he began sharing personal and collective experiences of Congolese life in the form of cartoons. In one post, narrating his childhood, he labeled an interactive story: “Where I'm from, sprinting precedes stepping.”

In one video, which has since generated more than 10,000 views, he is seen working on an incomplete painting, while gunshots are heard in the background.

It was against this backdrop that this visual story was created. The story is loaded with social commentary, showing how normal activities have been removed and replaced with ongoing instability.

Yet Musavuli maintains the short comic was not meant as explicit political commentary: “I’m not really 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 staying silent 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 control, he says: “There is freedom of speech in Congo, but can you remain unharmed after you speak?”

Producing art that appears too negative 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 normal 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.

Based on Musavuli, some artists have come under coercion to create pro-M23 content out of fear for their lives. “If you are an artist with a voice in Goma, the M23 can utilize you, sometimes by compulsion, 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.”

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

But he adds: “It isn't just about doing art to sell it.”

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

“Even without control but inaction is so much worse. Although your voice is heard by just two people, it’s something.”

In the conclusion of Baraka and the Unpredictable Life of Goma, Baraka walks alone down an empty road, his head held high. “The future could appear exactly the same,” he says, “but I’ll keep walking. Believing in better days is already resisting.”