It's not common for a Rotterdam-based artist to create work about the West African and Surinamese Winti culture or belief. How did the series originate?
Honestly, I was also quite surprised that a Black Winti priestess invited me, a white artist, to produce a Winti art collection. The goal of the new Winti art collection: an African revival of art in the Winti ritual. This practice had been forgotten on the Protestant plantations of Suriname. I was even more surprised when I heard that her ancestors had designated me as the chosen artist. Now I understand that much better. The collaboration between Black priestess Marian Markelo and a white artist Boris van Berkum is not accidental and even conveys an important message: that we need each other in the process of dealing with the slavery past and creating a new collective story.
Marian says, "Our Winti artworks are the symbols of the future, one in which we work together on an equal and respectful basis, a future in which we celebrate our cultural differences and bring them together into something new and beautiful."
The approach to the design process for the new Winti art collection may seem a bit odd. I assemble and model forms obtained through 3D scans of art objects, including from ethnographic museum collections, with 3D scans of living models and contemporary objects. In Kabra Blauw, for example, I placed an ancestor mask of the Egungun Yoruba (Africa Museum collection) on the shape of a 17th-century octagonal lidded vase from the Boijmans collection.
When Winti priestess Marian Markelo asked you to join this project, did you immediately want to be part of it? Did you know anything about Winti culture?
Yes, I knew I had to do this; I find art in a spiritual context fascinating. In 2010, Winti priestess Marian Markelo commissioned me to develop and produce a new Winti art collection. I actually knew very little about it. So, I spent three years doing a 'Winti internship' with Marian, conducting extensive research on Winti, the history of slavery and African art collections in Dutch museums. I also went on study trips to Ghana, Togo Benin, and Suriname and attended countless Winti rituals. It wasn't until 2013 that I created the first real work: the Kabra ancestor mask. This mask dances every year at Winti ancestor rituals and accompanies Marian Markelo every year when she presents the libation in memory of the ancestors during the National Commemoration of Dutch Slavery Past on Keti Koti. The Amsterdam Museum acquired it in 2014 on the condition that we could continue to use it.
I noticed that the series is broader than just these sculptures. There are also utensils, brooches and salt shakers. What made you decide to include these?
The Kabra Blauw collection includes Kabra Blauw ornamental vases (artworks), a Kabra Blauw salt shaker and a Kabra commemorative pin. I designed the salt shaker and the pin for the Slavery Past Commemorative Year. NiNsee (National Institute of Dutch Slavery Past and Heritage) has designated the Kabra Blauw Salt Shaker as the souvenir of the Slavery Past Commemorative Year. "The shaker allows the conversation about the history of Dutch slavery to be held at the kitchen table," said Linda Nooitmeer, chairperson of NiNsee. The salt shaker has since become the absolute bestseller in the Dutch Museum Giftshop's webshop and is available in 30 museum shops across the country. The Kabra commemorative pin now has a circulation of 20,000 pieces. I think it's important that art ownership, no matter how small, is accessible to everyone. In this sense, I am following in the footsteps of our collective art predecessor Keith Haring with his Pop Shop.
Do you want to expand the project further and if so, what can we expect?
In the long term, I would like to create a large historical work, a kaleidoscopic vision, in which the entire story of Winti is depicted, the cosmology of Winti as it were. In the short term, a set of two Kabra Blauw ornamental vases has been purchased by Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen and will be on display until March 2025 at the Depot in the exhibition 'Beloved, highlights from the collection'.
