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Throughout the initial period of the morning, Baraka wanders through the alleys of Goma. He takes a wrong turn and encounters bandits. At his residence, his father scrolls through TV channels while his mother checks bags of flour. No one speaks. The quiet is broken only by crackles on the radio.

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

That marks the beginning to a visual story set in turbulent Goma, the initial comic by a 31-year-old visual artist, Edizon Musavuli, released earlier this year. The story illustrates common hardships in Goma through the perspective of a child.

Influential Congolese artists such as Barly Baruti, Fifi Mukuna and Papa Mfumu’Eto, who grasped the public’s imagination 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 located in or about the Democratic Republic of the Congo created by Congolese artists.

Creativity offers optimism. It represents a foundation.

“My art journey started since I could hold a pencil,” Musavuli explains of his journey as an artist. He began to pursue the craft seriously only after finishing high school, joining at a media institute in Nairobi. His studies, however, were halted by financial difficulties.

His first individual showcase was in January 2020, organised with a cultural institute in Goma. “It stood as a major display. And it was impressive how everyone reacted to it,” says Musavuli.

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

“Local illustrators are really relying on external 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 took over Goma in January this year, the city’s cultural hubs weakened alongside its economy. “Creativity inspires, it’s something to start with, but our situation here doesn’t change. So people in Goma are not really interested any more,” says Musavuli.

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

Leveraging Instagram, he began disseminating individual and shared experiences of Congolese life in the form of cartoons. In one post, narrating his childhood, he titled an interactive story: “My homeland teaches running before walking.”

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

Amid these conditions that Baraka and the Unpredictable Life of Goma was created. The story is filled with social commentary, emphasizing how normal activities have been stripped away and replaced with ongoing instability.

Yet Musavuli maintains the short comic was not meant as overt political commentary: “I’m not really a political artist or activist though 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. When someone hears you, it’s something.

Asked whether he feels able to express himself freely under control, he says: “There is freedom of speech in Congo, but are you truly safe after you speak?”

Creating art that appears too negative of M23 or the government can be perilous, 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 secure for you.

“In terms of governance, 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 dominance by the M23.

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

Although instability 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 digital outlet.

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

Despite the risks and the financial uncertainties, Musavuli says he wants to continue producing work that gives expression to the overlooked people of Goma. “Our community is strong – this is not the first time we have been through this.

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

At the end of Baraka and the Unpredictable Life of Goma, Baraka walks alone down an empty road, his head held high. “Tomorrow might look exactly the same,” he says, “but I persist moving. Maintaining optimism is already resisting.”