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MAKING THE INVISIBLE VISIBLE

The Enclave:
Making the Invisible Visible
Bryanne McNamara
Portland State University

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As I first walked into the Enclave, I was moderately afraid of what I was about to witness. I
was looking at all the pictures on the walls right outside the gallery space. All was calm and
silent, until I began to walk into the room. It was a very unsettling experience. The noises that I
heard are hard to describe, but they sounded a bit like planes, bombs, and two-way radio static. I
was not quite sure where the dark tunnel would lead to, until I reached a room filled with floating
moving pictures. I watched one screen for a while, until I realized that I must sit on the bench in
the gallery so as to be able to see all the screens at once to get the full effect. There seemed to be
no order to the images on the screen. No real beginning or end to all the chaos. There is no order,
just like there is no order in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Some scenes were quiet and
sad, but breathe taking. Others were loud and violent.
This experience was a rollercoaster of feelings. On one hand the landscape was so beautiful,
the pinks and reds only adding to this beauty. I felt as if I were in a Doctor Seuss book. On the
other hand, the images of the people were so sad. Poverty is everywhere. This was a real inner
conflict for me. I wanted to be mournful because of the people experiencing this war, but the
landscape was almost magical to look at.
The parts that I had more of a reaction to were the part where there was complete silence,
specifically the part where it was silent while everyone was walking around gawking at the dead
solider in the middle of town. Without the loud stressful sounds, I was able to really take in the
images before and reflect on them. The loudness of the whole thing was very stress inducing,
which must be what it is like to live there. The people must be constantly worried that something
terrible might happen. The scene of the dead solider made me think about how normal it must be
for these people to come across the dead.

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Another part that I reacted to was the part when the child was being born. I was terrified that
the baby was a stillborn, until I saw it moving on its own. This made me think about how room
that the child was born in seemed very unsterile and dirty. This just proves how poor they are and
how much medical attention and improvements are needed there.
The visible aspects to this piece are the poverty and lack of infrastructure. There are hardly
any roads or buildings. This means that it is incredibly hard to transport materials. Although the
Democratic Republic of the Congo possess trillions of dollars in minerals and resources and has
extremely rich and productive soil, they are still one of the poorest countries in the world.
Without infrastructure there is no way to transport materials and no place to sell them.
Another visible aspect to The Enclave is the beautiful landscape with cotton candy trees
everywhere. The scene from the mountain top is calming and peaceful, but what you dont see is
the fighting going on under the canopy. This is what is invisible. You dont see the violence and
chaos occurring everywhere. There are rebel groups hiding in the trees, waiting to kill other rebel
groups. The pinks, red, and purples make the DRC seem unreal, like you are in another world. It
looks like a dream, but it is not.. It is very real and very scary. Richard Mosses purpose was to
reveal the invisible, not only with the infrared camera used during World War II to reveal
camouflaged installations hidden in the landscape, (Cade, 2012) but to show the world the issue
that is going in in the DRC. More than 5 million people have died since 1998, but it is no longer
being reported on and is therefore invisible to the world.
The video clip I chose was the one where the solider is found dead on the street. He is
covered with a plastic tarp. People pass by him and lift the tarp up to see what has happened.
Meanwhile other people are walking around town as if nothing happened. Some of these people

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are wearing brand names like Hollister. Soon more people begin to gather around the solider with
cameras, cellphones, and recording devices and are taking pictures and videos of this man.
This shows that people are documenting the events that happen in the DRC. They have
cameras other recording devices. These must have come from other places around the world.
This is the same with the clothing they wear. They must have clothing and devices shipped to the
DRC somehow, whether it was through donation or not. This shows that they too have been
affected by globalization and that they are not 100% cut off from the world because of their lack
of infrastructure. This relates to globalization because there is new technology everywhere, even
in the poorest of places like the DRC. They may be using this technology to show others to get
word out to other places about their disaster, like they did in the Middle East by posting on social
media during the revolutions.
This also shows that they have different norms than people in the United States do.
Seeing someone dead in the streets is not as shocking as it would be for those in the U.S. They
seem upset and worried, but not surprised that this has happened. This is because they deal with
death and despair all the time. Their copping mechanism must be to accept this death and move
on. They do not have time to mourn and be upset, they must gather themselves and do what has
to be done to survive. Mourning seems to be a kind of luxury here in the United States. They
cannot get super upset every time, otherwise they would be upset all the time. They have a
different way of coping with death than we do. This relates to globalization because every
culture has a different way of coping with death. The people in the DRC cope with death by not
thinking about. They must move on and do what they have to do. People in the U.S. are a bit
more dramatic about it. They mourn for many days. People in Burundi cope with death by not
mentioning it. We all must cope with death in some way.

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The purpose of The Enclave is to reveal what was previously invisible to the world. Although
the conflict was reported in the late 90s, it was later forgotten. Just because it is no longer
reported on does not mean that it is in anyway resolved. The world needed to be reminded of this
conflict occurring in the DRC, for so many have been affected by it. We are all somehow
affected by this conflict, whether you were one of the 5 million casualties, one of the million
internally displaced peoples, have family in the DCR, or purchase products, like the coltan that is
mined there and is put into many of our cellphones and computers, from the DRC.
Another purpose of The Enclaves designed was to create a physically immersive
experience (Brooks, 2013) by placing the double-sided screens in a dark chamber. This makes it
so that one doesnt focus on whats going on around them, but on the screen alone. There are
many different scenes happening at once to force the viewer to interact spatially from an array
of differing viewpoints. (Brooks, 2013)
The goal of the infrared camera was to place beauty and human suffering side my side. The
point of this juxtaposition was to move people in an unsettling way. Mosse explains that beauty
is one of the main lines to make people feel something. If you represent [war] with beauty, and
sometimes it is beautiful, that creates an ethical problem in the viewers mind. (Cade, 2012) The
pink is so shocking that it makes people stop and think.
I believe that The Enclave did achieve these goals, because I personally was moved by
the entire thing. I was unaware of this conflict occurring in the DRC before I visited The
Enclave. It has informed me of this terrible human suffering that has been happening for a long
time and is yet to be resolved. I believe that a lot of other people who have visited The Enclave
have become more aware of this situation. The Enclave has encouraged me to do more research
on the DRC so that I can be more educated and think about how I can help with this problem.

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Another goal it achieved was to physically immerse people into this experience. It was
sort of like time did not exist. The first time I went to The Enclave, I spent an hour in there, when
it only felt like 20 minutes. All I could focus on was what was in front of me and the dark room
made it so there were no distractions. I was captivated by the images. I saw the beautiful
landscape all around made more beautiful by the pinks and reds. This caught my eye and made
me see all the awful things happening in this land, like rape and war.
The Enclave was very moving. It was full of beauty and human suffering. Im glad I got a
chance to experience it. I learned some new and shocking news about the Democratic Republic
of the Congo. I was moved by the images and the sounds. I hope that many are able to
experience The Enclave and that they too become more educated about the DRC.
References:
Cade, DL (2012, June 2) "The Enclave: A Powerful Documentary on The Congo Shot
Entirely on Infrared Film." PetaPixel RSS.
Retrieved from http://petapixel.com/2013/06/02/the-enclave-a-powerful-documentary-on-thecongo-shot-entirely-on-infrared-film/
Brooks, Katherine (2013, June 5) "Richard Mosse's 'The Enclave': Stunning Film Captures The
Democratic Republic Of Congo In Infrared Tones. The Huffington Post.
Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/05/richard-mosses-the-enclavedocumentary-democratic-republic-of-congo-infrared_n_3390161.html
Gettleman, Jeffrey (2012, December 15) "The Worlds Worst War." The New York Times,.
Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/sunday-review/congos-never-endingwar.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0