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In the initial period of the morning, the protagonist strolls through the roads of Goma. He chooses an incorrect path and runs into outlaws. In his household, his father switches TV channels while his mother checks bags of flour. No one speaks. The stillness is shattered only by crackles on the radio.

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

This is the opening to Baraka and the Unpredictable Life of Goma, the first comic by a emerging visual artist, Edizon Musavuli, shared earlier this year. The story depicts everyday struggles in Goma through the viewpoint of a child.

Well-known Congolese artists such as Barly Baruti, Fifi Mukuna and Papa Mfumu’Eto, who seized 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 produced by Congolese artists.

Expression provides light. It represents a foundation.

“I've been illustrating since I could hold a pencil,” Musavuli says of his journey as an artist. He began to engage in the craft seriously only after finishing high school, enrolling at a media institute in Nairobi. His studies, however, were cut short by monetary constraints.

His first solo exhibition was in January 2020, curated with a cultural institute in Goma. “It stood as a major display. People reacted strongly how everyone responded to it,” says Musavuli.

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

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

When M23 captured Goma in January this year, the city’s creative spaces weakened alongside its economy. “Expression fosters optimism, it’s something to start with, but our circumstances here doesn’t change. So people in Goma are not really interested any more,” says Musavuli.

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

Turning to Instagram, he began sharing private and public experiences of Congolese life in the form of cartoons. In one post, recounting his childhood, he captioned an interactive story: “Where I'm from, sprinting precedes stepping.”

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

It was against this backdrop that the comic narrative was created. The story is charged with social commentary, emphasizing how daily life have been removed and replaced with perpetual insecurity.

Yet Musavuli states the short comic was not meant as direct political commentary: “I’m not really a political artist or activist but I say what people around me are thinking. In that manner 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: “People can speak openly in Congo, but are you truly safe after you speak?”

Making 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.

“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.

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 use 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 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 online platform.

But he adds: “I don't solely doing art to generate income.”

Despite the risks and the financial uncertainties, Musavuli says he wants to continue producing work that gives representation 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 staying passive is so much worse. Even if your voice is heard by just two people, it’s something.”

Towards the finish of this visual narrative, Baraka walks alone down an deserted road, his head held high. “Next day may seem exactly the same,” he says, “but I persist moving. Maintaining optimism is already resisting.”