TOKO WAAR IS THUIS (2020 - current)
Research project
How can you circumvent the arrow of progress thinking in a whitewashed past?
What I previously knew about my Indo background, I learned from my father, who himself had been torn from his roots in his teenage years. He turned into an eccentric man who ultimately embraced his otherness in the east of the Netherlands. He kept his Indo identity together with improvisation, fantasy and showmanship in his small exotic supermarket, a toko. There he wrapped customers around his fingers with charm and beautiful stories, and introduced many spices into a Dutch kitchen. I grew up in that toko. Filled of stories that are not quite true, but have a poetic quality and need to be read between the lines. They reveal a longing. Greedy for more.
Now I do something similar to my father. But instead of products and spices, I use moving images and voice as means to interpret a faded past and make it part of the conversation and the present here. I collect stories, artifacts, fragments, symbols, clues in nature and archives, remnants and floating feelings. With this I feed an ecosystem-like structure from which I draw essayistic video work and installations.
In the newest research fase the scope is shifting into two directions. One towards questioning origin narratives implemented by the oppressor and a shape shifting origin mother. The second zooms out from from rediscovered ancestral values towards systemic deconstruction. Using the toko as a micro-kosmos to critique the global imbalance in quality, exploitation of natural resources, cheap nature, neo-colonial and late-stage capitalistic logistics.
Over the years supported by:
Stimuleringsfonds voor de Creatieve Industrie
Instituut voor Beeld & Geluid
KF Hein fonds
The following video portret was made by Roel van Tour, interview Maarten Westerveen, concept by Koehorst in 't Veld for Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie during early stages of my research:
In the following talk show on Representation within audiovisual design practices, I was asked about my project a year in. At Dutch Design Week 2021, moderated by Nelly Dos Reis for Stimuleringsfonds:
