Erasing Tintin

JAN ROSSEEL (Belgium, 1979)

Through the use of photographs, video, and objects, Rosseel re-contextualises historical events that inherently implicate ideas of memory and the act of remembering; stories such as the series of violent robberies of numerous Belgian supermarkets in 1985 or, more recently, the killing of Osama Bin Laden. Such tales ask questions about the reliability of the accounts that we are presented with, and even more so about the reliability of our own memory and brain. Rosseel consciously works as an investigator, using methods from scientific research and journalism to build his own narrative in which fact and fiction coexist.

Jan Rosseel studied documentary photography at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague, the Netherlands, and Photojournalism at the Danish School of Media and Journalism in Aarhus, Denmark. He was the first artist to be awarded a research fellowship at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences. His pictures have been published in the New York Times, Le Monde, IMA Magazine, Esquire Russia, L’Echo, De Volkskrant / Volkskrant Magazine, Vrij Nederland, de Morgen, Le Vif, de Standaard / DS Magazine, De Tijd, P/f, PhotoQ, GUP Magazine, Huffington Post, and FOAM Magazine. He is a lecturer at the Royal Academy of Arts in The Hague and has been a guest lecturer at the Master of Photography at AKV St. Joost in Breda and at the MA Photography at the Luca School of Arts in Brussels.

There are three main versions of Tintin au Congo. The first was published in 1931 in black and white. A second, colour edition was released in 1946, in which Hergé revised several elements of the story, including scenes that reflected colonial attitudes toward the Congolese people. A third version, published in 1975, introduced further changes, particularly to reduce depictions of harm to animals.

One of the most significant changes made in the 1946 edition appears in a classroom scene featuring Tintin, his dog Snowy, and a group of Congolese schoolchildren. In the 1931 version, Tintin teaches the children about Belgium, describing it as their homeland. The original text reads: “My dear friends, today I am going to talk to you about your country: Belgium!”

In the 1946 edition, this lesson was replaced with a mathematics lesson. The text was changed to: “We’ll start, if you don’t mind, with some sums. Who can tell me what two plus two is? … No one? … Here it is, two plus two equals …”

While this revision removed the direct message that positioned Belgium as the children’s homeland, the overall structure of the scene remains largely unchanged. Tintin continues to occupy the role of authority and instructor, while the Congolese pupils remain passive observers. The relationship between the teacher and students still reflects a hierarchy in which Tintin is presented as the source of knowledge and guidance.

This portrayal reflects the colonial worldview that was common in Belgium during the period in which the story was created. Throughout the album, Tintin is depicted as a figure who brings solutions, knowledge, and leadership. He appears in a variety of roles—including teacher, doctor, engineer, leader, and mediator—and is often shown guiding others. Such representations mirror colonial narratives that portrayed Europeans as agents of progress and authority.

Originally published in the youth supplement of the Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle, Tintin au Congo influenced how many young readers understood the Congo and its people. Today, the album is widely discussed as a historical document that reflects the attitudes and assumptions of its time. The classroom scene, in particular, highlights educational and social relationships based on unequal power structures rather than on the principle of equality between people.

TINTIN AU CONGO

In this artwork, the original comic album is physically re-edited by the artist. Pages are manually sanded so that images without Black characters are removed, leaving only scenes in which Congolese figures appear. By stripping away much of the surrounding narrative, the artist creates a more concentrated and confrontational view of the relationships represented in the book. This intervention draws attention to the colonial framework that underpins the story and encourages viewers to critically examine how power, authority, and representation are constructed within the comic. Rather than altering the original content itself, the work reframes it, making the presence of colonial assumptions more visible and open to reflection.