Artist
Michelle Piergoelam
Songs in a strange land
The rivers of Suriname, on the rivers of Suriname
Sailed the enslaved with their ships
They rowed and saw the sun set below the horizon, the moon’s reflections ripple on the water
The rivers of Suriname, on the rivers of Suriname
They transported trade goods into town,
Surrounded by the scent of coffee and tobacco, they made their way through the current
The rivers of Suriname, on the rivers of Suriname
They sang a melodic sequence of call and response
Their songs of resilience and sorrow broke the silence of the night
On these rivers of Suriname
Dawn brought them hope for better lives
And their songs still echo on the rhythm of the water
The untangled tales
Er tin tin, sigri tin tin…
Once upon a time, long ago…tales were told that everyone could hear, but not everyone could understand. Numerous tales tell the story of Anansi – a mythical spider who dealt with a tiger that made his life miserable. Although the spider was physically weaker, it was often able to defeat the tiger with cleverness and cunning. Is it really just a myth? These stories, passed along from Africa to Suriname, and told between generations, enabled enslaved people to share their thoughts without slaveholders knowing what was actually meant.
In the same vein, angisas worn by women were not only beautiful textiles: their intricate folds contained hidden stories and wisdoms that could only be read by those who’d learnt to.
Through memories and imagination, The untangled tales visualises stories of the Anansi storytellers and the Angisa-folders, and the ways in which these traditions allow us to glimpse at years of slavery.
Fourteen leaves and a cup of water
What attracts FOTODOK to the works of Sheng-Wen Lo and Tanja Engelberts is their absolute freedom of working with media: both employ not only photography, but also video, sound, words, and sculpture. In her latest work We exhale (2022-2023), Engelberts translates her images into sculptural planes made out of clay and finished with a glaze sourced from The Rhône river, while Lo , in her project Watch Out! (2022-2023) initiates a sort of jewellery treasure hunt game, based on the documentation of roadkills in the Camargue area. Both residents of The Rijksakademie, Amsterdam from 2019-2021, Lo and Engelberts have worked independently on subjects including ecology and non-human perspectives, while also often collaborating.
Yana Kononova started working on the project Radiations of War (2022) immediately after the Russian Federation began a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine on the 24th February 2022 – a new turn in a war that first broke out in 2014. Using a medium format camera, she captures pictures of war crimes, destroyed infrastructure, the activities of various Ukrainian services, the bodies of fallen warriors, and the victims among the civilian population. Once you have seen her images you can’t un-see them – monumental and powerful, they stay with the viewer.
Michelle Piergoelam and Sebastian Koudijzer both have roots in Surinam and investigate the traditions and rituals of their families and cultures. Piergoelam works with myths and tales and in her latest project Songs in a strange land (2022), she works with songs, and the colonial history they keep traces of. Koudijzer is interested in rituals and the search for community and belonging. In Kampong Tori (2021-ongoing), together with his brother, the artist spends time with their retired grandparents in the garden community of Beukhoeve, Rotterdam, cooking Javanese-Surinamese dishes together, and in time, the food becomes a starting point for conversation, evoking memories, and piecing familial narratives together.
