Sara Blokland

Exhibitions on colonial history are constantly under scrutiny. Whose perspective dominates? Whose voice is heard, and who is the intended viewer? With Antilles Day, I delve into the preparations for the opening of the new Antilles Hall at the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam in 1948. The artwork captures this process, revealing the ideas, opinions, and occasional frustrations that typically remain unseen by the public. It showcases the intersection of diverse perspectives on the colonies, the exhibited objects, and personal artistic visions. The primary focus lies on the dialogues among exhibition makers, an ambitious set painter, a critical journalist, and the visual narratives expressed through exhibition design.

Archival material and photographs predominantly show white men observing and opening the exhibition, while the colonized subjects appear only as life-size figuresfixed, staged, and reduced to stereotyped representations within a colonial inventory. The colonized body is primarily represented in the form of a life-size figure, frozen amidst objects that objectify her as part of this inventory. Deeply non-present in all of this are those whom the exhibition is about—those whose histories are represented. The fear of their voices is neatly redirected, as even traditional cooking with typical dishes from the Antilles is entrusted to a luxurious Amsterdam hotel. All figures in the work are rendered as Kodak-yellow silhouettes, recaptured as shadows. This visual strategy flattens distinctions between the living participants and the exhibited figures, bringing both onto the same plane as constructed and mediated presences. It blurs the boundary between subject and object, the human and its representation. At the same time, it references Kodak’s technical history, in which film was developed primarily for capturing white skin tones. In this piece, a visual paper, I zoom in on the representation of colonial histories in the Netherlands, colonial propaganda, unheard voices, and the complex dynamics between museum curators, designers, and the public. De Antillendag ultimately reflects on the museum as a site where histories are actively produced rather than passively presented. By bringing forward the voices, tensions, and omissions embedded in exhibition-making, the work questions whose perspectives are made visible and how colonial histories continue to be mediated in the present.

IDENTITIES: Contemporary Caribbean Perspectives

guest-curator  Sara Blokland

Initiative : RCMC

Location: Wereld Museum Rotterdam from 16/01/2020 untill 31/03/2020

Artist : Quinsy Gario, Rachel Moron, Kevin Osepa , Sara Blokland

IDENTITIES: Contemporary Caribbean Perspectives

specials thanks to
The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) , Research Center for Material Culture, Wereld museum Rotterdam,
Special to Liza Swaving , Irene de Groot , Richard van Alphen  , Wayne Modest and kathe kruse Museum