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During the first period of the morning, the protagonist strolls through the streets of Goma. He chooses an incorrect path and meets outlaws. At his residence, his father scrolls through TV channels while his mother checks bags of flour. Silence prevails. The quiet is broken only by static on the radio.

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

This is the opening to the comic strip depicting Goma's uncertainties, the first comic by a young visual artist, Edizon Musavuli, published earlier this year. The story illustrates everyday struggles in Goma through the perspective of a child.

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

Expression provides light. It’s something to start with.

“My art journey started since I could hold a pencil,” Musavuli explains of his journey as an artist. He began to engage in the craft dedicatedly only after finishing high school, registering at a media institute in Nairobi. His studies, however, were interrupted by economic challenges.

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

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

“Artists in Goma are really dependent on external exhibitions like that,” he says. “If they’re not around, 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 declined alongside its economy. “Expression fosters optimism, it's a foundation, but our reality here doesn’t change. So people in Goma are not really invested any more,” says Musavuli.

Creators and expression have long been consigned to the periphery of the state agenda. “We are not something the government values,” he says.

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

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

Amid these conditions that this visual story was created. The story is filled with underlying messages, emphasizing how ordinary routines have been eroded and replaced with ongoing instability.

Yet Musavuli states the short comic was not meant as explicit political commentary: “I’m not really a political artist or activist however I say what people around me are thinking. That’s how I do my art.”

We might not have power but not doing anything 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: “Free expression exists in Congo, but will you be free after you speak?”

Producing 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 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 occupation by the M23.

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

While danger is one challenge, making a living through the arts is another obstacle. “There's an issue 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 make money.”

In spite of the risks and the financial uncertainties, Musavuli says he wants to continue creating work that gives voice to the disenfranchised people of Goma. “We are a resilient population – this is not the first time we have been through this.

“Although influence is limited but staying passive 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. “Tomorrow might look exactly the same,” he says, “but I’ll keep walking. Maintaining optimism is already fighting back.”