2024-11-21T14:06:47-05:00 https://archinect.com/news/article/150000583/the-oma-designed-lusanga-international-research-centre-on-art-and-economic-inequality-aims-to-expose-and-redress-economic-inequalities Nicholas Korody 2017-03-31T12:45:00-04:00 >2018-01-30T06:16:04-05:00 <img src="https://archinect.gumlet.io/uploads/xt/xtdan9e36t9iut6w.jpg?fit=crop&auto=compress%2Cformat&enlarge=true&w=1200" border="0" /><p>Located on the former site of a Unilever palm oil plantation in the Congolese forest, the Lusanga International Research Centre on Art and Economic Inequality, or LIRCAEI, is a new white cube museum space dedicated to &ldquo;the transformation of former plantation spaces into areas for artistic critique, beauty, and ecological diversity, through funneling art world capital back to the plantations it was originally extracted from&mdash;to create, in other words, a post-plantation.&rdquo; Designed by OMA, the Centre seeks to retain profits from the community, which produces sculptures made from cacao among other works, and then buy back land to finance further development. OMA has developed a master plan in collaboration with the local community, &ldquo;with the goal of establishing the center as a legitimization machine, investigating and relaying the artistic visions and works of plantation workers in the Congo and throughout the global south on the site of their former exploitation.&rdquo;</p><p><img title="" alt="" src="http://cdn.archinect.net/images/650x/4s/4s5bqp9umxd9o643.jpg"></p><p><img title="" alt="" src="http://cdn.archinect.net/images/650x/sm/smxhwgptx3w8ijf8.jpg"></p><p>&ldquo;Plugged into internat...</p>