From 26 June to 23 August 2026, INBOX presents On Saints and Monuments by Denys Shantar, an Antwerp-based Ukrainian–Swiss artist, researcher and autodidact-queer theologist.
The presentation opens with a preview during the seasonal opening on Thursday 25 June 2026, from 20:00 to 23:00.
On Saints and Monuments
As a starting point, I took the Belgian Congo colonial monument in Antwerp’s Stadspark, located close to where I live. I kept asking myself: What can an artist — and an outsider — do about a colonial monument?
The monument has been protested before with red paint, and there have been more formal initiatives by the Green Party and the Middelheim Museum to contextualize it. Yet to this day, the monument remains untouched, without any information, protected as heritage under the familiar argument of “preserving history.” My idea was simple: to request parts of the monument as a loan and preserve them temporarily inside the museum of contemporary art.
Because my artistic practice revolves around saints — which I use to question conservative and nationalistic beliefs — I came across Blessed Isidore Bakanja and Blessed Marie Clémentine Anuarite Nengapeta. Bakanja is a particularly striking figure: a Congolese worker killed by a Belgian plantation agent in the Belgian Congo, the very annexation celebrated by the Stadspark monument.
Blessed Anuarite’s story is equally complex. Her name is the result of an administrative mistake by Belgian religious sisters, who recorded her sister’s name instead of her own. Born Nengapeta, baptized Alphonsine, and later taking the name Marie Clémentine as a nun, she was killed in 1964 after refusing the advances of a rebel colonel. The rebellion itself was a direct consequence of the assassination of Congo’s first prime minister, Patrice Lumumba — an event in which Belgium was directly involved.
Bringing these two Congolese martyrs — officially recognized by the Vatican — into confrontation with the colonial monument felt like a logical and necessary gesture. Their lives and deaths expose the violence behind the so called “civilizing mission” and reveal the human cost hidden beneath the rhetoric of heritage preservation.
About Denys Shantar
Denys Shantar (*1997, Kherson), is an Antwerp based Ukrainian – Swiss artist, researcher, and autodidact-queer theologist, with a background in theater and Eastern Orthodox religion. He is currently a researcher at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp with his project “God save the Queer(s)”.
In his artistic practice, Shantar draws on his experiences as a queer immigrant growing up in an Eastern Orthodox religious community in Zürich and his search for belonging, identity, and healing. He works mainly with textile collaging, using recycled and gifted materials intertwining hagiographies with his own upbringing and queer perspective, linking the personal to current socio-political and historical events.
He exhibited in several international institutions and spaces, including: Z33 House for Contemporary Art Hasselt (BE), Helmhaus Zurich (CH), GfzK Museum for Contemporary Art Leipzig (DE), Middelheim Museum Antwerp (BE), Komplot Brussels (BE) and Cas-co Leuven (BE). His work is also in public collections: Holland College KU Leuven, Sint Andris Kerk Antwerp and Museum of Modern Religious Art in Koekelberg.
Practical info
Date: 26.06–23.08.2026
Preview: Thursday 25.06.2026, 20:00–23:00, during the seasonal opening
Location: Muhka, floor +5, INBOX
Access: Free admission.