The result is Congo (belge), a success at the Photo Museum in Antwerp, with more than 33,000 visitors so far.

Although it’s easy to enjoy coming face-to-face with De Keyzer’s work, deciphering layers of meaning in each photo, it wasn’t an easy trip for the photographer. The DRC appears to have inherited the Belgian art of bureaucracy, and De Keyzer had to spend many Congolese francs and many hours in waiting rooms to get the right permits.

Not to mention the prevalence of guns, which show up repeatedly in the photos: one pointed straight at the photographer. “I thought I was a goner,” De Keyzer admitted later.

But some reception was decidedly friendlier – if somewhat melancholic. After spending three days with the Jesuits in Kikwit, De Keyzer exclaimed: “It’s just like I was back at the Sint-Amands boarding school in Kortrijk.”

That 1950s feeling is exactly what can make the DRC such a hauntingly familiar place to Belgian visitors today. For former Belgian administrators in the DRC, who are attending the exhibition in droves, the photos are reminiscent of their golden days. They felt adventurous, free of the restrictive post-war gloom. They had all the modern commodities, took holidays, went on safari, had personnel.

A Belgian visitor to the exhibition who recently lived in Kinshasa explains: “You’re in such an unfamiliar place, and then suddenly you see something straight from your own youth. I’ll never forget that typical blue-and-white Belgian signpost, caught in the headlights of our car, and how the old lettering ‘Elisabethville’ magically popped up from under ‘Lubumbashi’ like a palimpsest”.

But interestingly enough, what De Keyzer and other Belgian visitors to the DRC have found is an equally glossed-over collective memory of the Congolese. Many feel homesick for the days when their Belgian “uncles” took care of them. A number of commentaries, gathered by Flemish writer David van Reybrouck, vent dismay about the state of affairs today and question why the Belgians aren’t taking care of things.

Two visitors to the exhibition, members of Doctors Without Borders who worked extensively in the DRC, are looking at a 2008 photo of a bar in Kinshasa, adorned with a single bottle of Coke and posters of Elvis and the Twin Towers. “It’s touching how connected the Congolese feel with the world,” comments one of them. “It’s all the more heart-wrenching when they realise that the world has abandoned them.”

De Keyzer’s photos are specific to Belgian colonialism, so abandonment and ruins figure heavily. In one of my favourites, called “Zoo, Kinshasa”, a man stands amongst such a scene. Suddenly your eyes are drawn to a certain point. Are those little black hands on his white-shirted shoulders? Yes, a small monkey is peeping from behind his back.

There is also an impressive series of workers in a melting foundry, the mark of Charleroi machinery quite clear. Another shows a typical Belgian red-brick house – or half of one – the rest having been demolished or bombed away. The roofless building sits full of schoolchildren having lessons.

But nothing says colonial like De Keyzer’s photo of the little church of Goma. You see a church made of iron, imported in pieces and assembled here, where it’s completely unsuitable for the climate. A man sitting out front appears resigned to the fact.

Photos I wish were mine

In the second part of the exhibition, De Keyzer has made selections from the extensive archives of the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren. The museum is in the process of digitising its 900,000 images from the DRC.

For Congo belge en images, De Keyzer made choices based on photos he himself would like to have taken, and he spent hours touching up each glass negative – used before the development of film – for the exhibition.

Flemish urban planning professor Johan Lagae co-curated, with the aim of broadening Belgians’ one-sided memory of the Congo. The story of the Leopold II years when expeditions famously hacked their way through the tropical forests, and enslaved labourers lost hands to the oppressor, is a complicated one. There’s fear, failure, fever.

Belgians had no qualms about registering oppressive activities, so plenty of pictures were taken, with the sole purpose of legitimising colonial ambitions. Photography with glass negatives was a slow process, and subjects were directed into poses.

This results in a less authentic view of everyday life, but provides stunning detail. You can read the addresses on the packages in the Banana post office, count the hairs on the fox terriers (which seem to be omnipresent). Majestic landscapes unfold before your eyes, Congolese workers nearly hidden among the trees. There are also photographs of large-scale infrastructural works. The colonial views are complemented by Bamako Encounters 2009, the biennale of African photography on the museum’s fourth floor.

And yet the full story may always remain incomplete. The parting quote on the wall is from a modern-day Congolese businessman: “But why don’t you return? The Belgians are stronger than China, aren’t they? Belgium is still a big league player, isn’t it?”

Congo (belge)
Congo belge en images
Until 16 May
FotoMuseum
Waalse Kaai 47, Antwerp
www.fotomuseum.be