They were headed to work in Khartoum, Kinshasa and Lille or they were on their feet cooking for families in Berlin, Brussels and Tulsa. Perhaps they were protesting in Brooklyn, Paramaribo, and Los Angeles, or they were praying in Gaza, Damascus and Port-au-Prince; almost certainly they were heavy with a load beyond their lifespans in Bahia, Kingston and Mogadishu.

Working, fighting. This they had been at for centuries. Wherever they landed they demanded peace and pay; their voices beaten back by regimes that sought to reconstitute their blackness as mere fuel for the engine of industry.

Their bodies could no longer hold.

An exhaustion spread from the river to the sea… In the mountains and the cities, rural Black people, coastal Black people, farming Black people, millions everywhere all at once took back a breath so deep as to contain the plundered peace of all ancestors.

Wherever they stood it came, suddenly and simultaneously: refusal, refusal, refusal. And in a gust they collapsed into sleep.

So begins the journey of Mbombo: Dream Echoes, a video game conceptualised by artist Sondi and commissioned by The Couch. Mbombo builds on years of research into the nature of rest and dreaming as radical forms of resistance against capital, colonial violence on the Black body [1]. Set in an unfolding, vibrant dreamscape the game raises profound questions about the potentiality of the dreamscape as a collective refuge. What’s possible when we rest? What do our dreams unravel?

Curator's note: As part of our broader exploration into rest, we have commissioned three artists to create soundscapes based on their interpretation of restfulness online. Anja Ngozi, Day Isay and Orpheu the Wizard have come through with spaces for imagination, daydreaming, contemplation, peace. Orpheu weaves together recalibrated versions of traditional sleep aids - birdsong, white noise - into something that feels like a temple offering. Day Isay opens a portal into parade day on a solarpunk planet of their own making. And Anja creates the sound of the dream you have when falling asleep in the last metro of the night.

Eyes, ears, mouths blossomed with color, light, and dimension. Released from the constraints of time and surveillance they move freely, overflowing with wonder. Time at once rigid, now made immaterial.

A figure in a pastel puffer suit is called forth to meander across chimerical plains and revel in the rosebud sweetness of each inhale, the soaring wings of exhale.

Mbombo: Dream Echoes attempts to render Black bodies beyond extraction— with play, pleasure and discovery as newly forged tools of liberation. Each experience, each encounter sheds a layer, heals a wound and in so doing reveals wisdom and ways of knowing that were once obscured and repressed in the name of capitalism, colonialism and slavery.

Mbombo: Dream Echoes reaches beyond bloodthirsty battles for glory in favor of idle wandering, playful curiosity and deep connection, abandoning traditional video game conventions of extraction, accumulation, and productivity in exchange for reward. In the tradition of visionary fiction, Sondi offers a way to practice the future; one that reclaims stolen imaginations, normalizes slow wanderings, and encourages a probing of our dreamspaces as otherwise sites of possibility.

Where previously their ease was only permitted in death, they had found another way. And — gloriously, infinite futures were birthed.

Text by Marly Pierre-Louis

Please note that Mbombo is currently only available for Windows. The Mac version will be released on August 6th 2024.

Credits:
Lead Artist, Character Design, Environment Design & Concept: Sondi
Research and Narrative Support: Marly Pierre-Louis
3D Asset Design: Pleun Gremmen
Unreal Engine Game Development: Eusebi Jucglà
Sound Design: Arjuna Vlasbloom
Graphic Design: Mika Schalks
Game Consultant: Iyo Bisseck
A commission by Het HEM for The Couch, co-funded by the Creative Industrie Fund NL

References
[1] This concept has been formalized and put into embodied practice by Tricia Hersey in her Nap Ministry and her book Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto. New York: Little, Brown Spark, 2022.