“Ik ben Soms Hier en Ook Niet Hier”
Spoken Word created for the ongoing exhibition ‘Soils’ in Van Abbe Museum (till the 24th of November 2024)
Where is home when you have no earth to root in? How do you connect with your roots when your umbilical cord is buried on another continent?
Just before the summer, I had the incredible opportunity to collaborate with Vivian Vasilda from the Van Abbemuseum to create a poem inspired by the story of Toetie and Achmed. Originally from Suriname, Toetie and Achmed cultivate crops in their community garden in Eindhoven that remind them of their homeland and Javanese-Indonesian heritage. This practice not only helps them maintain a connection to their roots and ancestors but also addresses the high cost of Surinamese vegetables in the Netherlands. Inspired by the Javanese principle and values of Gotong Royong (reciprocicity),they generously share their harvest with elders, family, and friends, fostering a sense of community and belonging.
Their story resonates deeply with my own experiences and those of many Surinamese in the diaspora. The poem I crafted is a collage of Toetie and Achmed’s narrative, interwoven with my personal experiences and contains bits and peices of Sranan Tongo, Dutch, and Ngoko Jawa (Javanese).
Based on my spoken word piece, Selim Haase created a captivating video inspired by my text. I love it when disciplines collide!
Check out the exhibition “Soils” at the Van Abbemuseum until November 24, 2024!
You can read the complete interview with Toetie and Achmed on the website of Erfgoed Brabant.
Crafting Resistance
Audio Guide created with collective Crafting Resistance part of the exhibition “Spuiten en Stikken” (Spray & Stitch) at the Central Museum Utrecht
Through an open call, the Utrecht-based collective Crafting Resistance selected a diverse group of weavers, writers, researchers, and textile enthusiasts to explore the textile archive of the Central Museum Utrecht. Our task was to reimagine the narratives behind selected objects through a speculative and feminist lens, culminating in the creation of audio guides that tell these reimagined stories.
The Process
It was an honour to craft this story and be a part of this process with such an inspiring group of weavers and storytellers. From the first day we met each other, I felt this synchronicity and collectivity when we all shared stories of our (grand)mothers, our personal connection to weaving, and the often hidden resistance in stories of various fabrics. Selecting an object was quite a difficult task, at first glance I felt a very colonial and Eurocentric dominating narrative in most of the objects. Also visiting the depot, made me aware that the museum has a large collection but they know so little about the stories tied to the objects. Is it only about collecting as much as possible? Where is the diversity and telling history from multiple perspectives?
After visiting the depot, I selected a manual to create mourning jewelry out of human hair.
The organic looking cover of the book and also reflecting on making jewelry out of hair to commemorate loved ones, fascinated me. In the book they also referred to the manual as ‘Pénelope of Weaving’ and mentioned ‘women’ everywhere, to emphasize that it’s women’s work. Doing research about the object I found out that this ritual became popular in the Victorian era. The jewelry was usually made by women to mourn their loved ones in a quiet and less visible way. What if we flipped this around? Being a poet and researcher inspired by Saidiya Hartman’s concept of critical fabulation, I wanted to use my imagination and question the silences in history and the stories that are made invisible. For this poem I went back to my Javanese-Surinamese ancestry, the mythology and all of the inspiring women I grew up with, women that gave so much of themselves, but were made invisible in return. So this poem is an ode and offering to them and all of the women that came before.
It all started with this reflection: Imagine collecting the hairs of your grandmother, weaving an earring from those hairs. Imagine this earring has magical properties that could allow you to communicate with your grandmother one more time. What would your grandmother say to you?
You can listen to the audio guide here.
