Kiluanji Kia Henda

Divinum Tormentum (The Divine Ordeal) #7, 2020 - 2021

Part of a deeply conceptual body of work, Divinum Tormentum (The Divine Ordeal) #7 explores the spiritual, psychological, and architectural residues of colonial and post-colonial power in Angola. This series draws on Christian iconography, particularly the symbolic violence embedded in religious structures and their afterlives in African societies. Henda juxtaposes elements of Catholic ritual, sacred architecture, and bodily imagery to reflect on how divinity and domination have historically been entangled.

In #7, as in other works in the series, Henda stages a photographic mise-en-scène that evokes both spiritual ecstasy and trauma. The title's Latin phrasing—“Divinum Tormentum”—suggests an ordeal that is at once sacred and excruciating, perhaps mirroring the experience of colonized subjects subjected to both religious conversion and cultural erasure. The work is part of Henda’s larger practice of interrogating how ideologies of salvation, authority, and identity are inscribed into space, myth, and memory.

Overall, the image serves as a visual meditation on martyrdom, transformation, and the spectral legacy of empire—turning the “ordeal” of the divine into a space for questioning and reclamation.

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