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In the first moments of the morning, Baraka wanders through the roads of Goma. He chooses an incorrect path and runs into bandits. In his household, his father flicks through TV channels while his mother tallies bags of flour. Silence prevails. The silence is interrupted only by static on the radio.

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

Here begins the opening to Baraka and the Unpredictable Life of Goma, the initial comic by a young visual artist, Edizon Musavuli, shared earlier this year. The story depicts common hardships in Goma through the perspective of a child.

Prominent Congolese artists such as Barly Baruti, Fifi Mukuna and Papa Mfumu’Eto, who captured the public’s interest in comic strips in the past, mainly 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 written by Congolese artists.

Art gives hope. It represents a foundation.

“I've been illustrating since I could hold a pencil,” Musavuli states of his path 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 cut short by financial difficulties.

His first solo exhibition was in January 2020, arranged with a cultural institute in Goma. “It was a really big exhibition. And it was impressive how everyone responded to it,” says Musavuli.

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

“Local illustrators are really reliant on foreign exhibitions like that,” he says. “Without them, it will seem like we don’t exist. This is the reality right now.”

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

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

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

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

Within this environment that Baraka and the Unpredictable Life of Goma was created. The story is filled with social commentary, emphasizing how daily life have been stripped away and replaced with perpetual insecurity.

Yet Musavuli insists the short comic was not meant as overt political commentary: “I am not a political artist or activist however I say what people around me are thinking. In that manner I do my art.”

Even without authority 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 rule, he says: “Free expression exists in Congo, but are you truly safe after you speak?”

Making art that appears too critical 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 safe for you.

“Politically, 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 control by the M23.

According to Musavuli, some artists have come under coercion to create supportive content out of concern for their lives. “As a creative 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. “The situation is complex to judge. But I cannot let myself to do something like that.”

While danger is one challenge, surviving financially through the arts is another difficulty. “It’s a problem in Congo that people don’t buy art. Most of the artists here have to do other things to make ends meet.” Musavuli works as a cartoonist for a digital outlet.

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

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

“We might not have power but not doing anything is so much worse. Even if 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 deserted road, his head held high. “Tomorrow might look exactly the same,” he says, “but I will continue. Believing in better days is already pushing against.”