Entangled Histories of the Blue
Group show: Dekoloniale - What remains?
Nikolaikirche Stadtmuseum Berlin
2024 - 2025
“Entangled Histories of the Blue“ (300 x 300 x 850 cm and 200 x 200 x 850 cm) is a textile installation that represents the rhizome as dynamic root network, that symbolically connects diasporic lives despite their scattering. After Caribbean philosopher Édouard Glissant, the concept of the rhizome opposes the idea of a singular, deep historical root.
The Blue refers to the history of the Indigo pigment, that originates in Western Africa and Southern Asia, and was produced using slave labor in the Caribbean among other places in the Americas. It became a symbol of wealth across Europe and one of the first mass produced products in the early history of the textile and ceramics industries. Colors such as Royal Blue, Berlin Blue, Prussian Blue and others can be traced back to the colonial Indigo industry. My installation is made of fabrics combined with jewelry elements such as beads and clips, that refer to Carnival costumes, looking at the important traditions of Caribbean Carnival as a protest, as well as a celebration of beauty and resistance. The monochrome fabrics are combined with unique indigo dyes, in memory of old traditions of pattern and fabric making in African cultures, that got lost in the Caribbean. The dynamic soft sculpture opposes the solidity of imperial statues in the church and thus becomes a memorial, as well as a reclamation, that seek to redress the role of religion and the church in colonial history.
Text by Theresa Weber
Photo by Rosa Merk
Curation by Suy Lan Hopmann
Ocean of Lands - to be born into this world
Group show: Remembrance. Apology. Reparation.
Dekoloniale project space, Wilhelmstr. 92
Berlin
2024
“Ocean of Lands – to be born into this world“ is a window installation with print on vinyl, in combination with a suspended resin object.
The Dekoloniale project space is located at the site of the Berlin conference that took place in 1884 under Kaiser Wilhelm – a moment in which the African continent was divided on a map by Western Colonial powers. My work seeks to negotiate the complexities of a world shaped by the legacy of events such as this colonial division, while also focusing on revolutionary acts that challenge colonial repressiveness.
Translucent prints platform a pattern of fictive cartography in reference to the Caribbean archipelago and mosaic shapes. The dark Blue hints at the colonial legacy of the Indigo industry. Additionally included are fragments of Carnival costumes, referring to
Caribbean rituals that can be traced back to Western African traditions. An example is the Junkanoo masquerade that takes place in Jamaica around December, celebrating the Ghanaian man John Conny. It also includes historical drawings of the Haitian revolution from 1791, which enabled the first total Democracy and independent Black state in the world and had crucial effects on the French Revolution, among other revolutionary movement of the period. Within the fluidity of the clear resin object, I archived corals and shells that I collected in Jamaica, in combination with beads. The central motif of blue hands are an homage to the film “Daughters of the Dust” by Julie Dash and Arthur Jafa, a film that takes place on a Caribbean island in 1902. I directly refer to a scene in which people are working in Indigo production, showing a close up of a blue coloring of their hands from the steaming blue liquid. The aim is to showcase the colonial scar, without reproducing violent imagery.
Text by Theresa Weber
Photo by Rosa Merk
Curation by Danielle Rosales
