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 “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—to create, in other words, a post-plantation.” 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, “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.”

“Plugged into international networks, the White Cube will focus at once on exposing worldwide inequalities and generating a new and inclusive economic and ecological model to redress them,” states the press release. “By establishing itself on the foundation of a new economic and artistic ecosystem, rather than through the existing market (many institutions in which, from the Tate Modern to the Van Abbemuseum to the Museum Ludwig, have been constructed in part with funds obtained through the exploitation of plantation workers), LIRCAEI and the new White Cube museum represent a new way forward, through art, for disenfranchised communities.”

The opening event is dubbed "The Repatriation of the White Cube" and will be held on April 21st and 22nd.