Mapping Black Europe

Luis Gonzalez

Acts of Resistance: Activist, Interlopers, and Pranksters SP 19

Professor Cacoilo

February 12, 2019

Mapping Black Europe

Remy Jungerman, a Dutch artist of Surinamese descent, explores parts of the spiritual culture from his country of origin and the visual culture of his adoptive homeland. Jungerman links these cultural signs and symbols into three-dimensional constructions using wood, cotton fabric, clay, nails and paint and two-dimensional structures in cotton fabric, clay and paint. His research and work are focused on finding the connection that links together the cultural principles of three continents, which are Africa, Europe and the Americas. The long, narrow 3-D grids of his sculptural work and the 2-D grids in his paintings refer to the patterns of Surinamese plantations as well as the geometry of fields and barriers of Holland. As per Thompson, “What proved most striking about capitalism’s ecstatic devotion to cultural production wasn’t its flattening ability, it was its potential to produce thousands of new identities” (Thompson 9). The horizontal appearance of the ocean is a comparison to the separation of land and cultures, but also explains the connection between the cultural and physical metaphors in Jungerman’s work. Jungerman’s mother’s family originally came from the Maroons. At that time African slaves who escaped custody would often settle with the native populations in the jungles of the Americas. This cultural heritage of customs and rituals was transported to Suriname from numerous parts of the African continent, specifically the Winti religion of Suriname. Winti is an Afro-Surinamese traditional religion that originated in South America and developed in the Dutch Empire. It carried the use of specific materials filled with symbolic meaning and can be seen in Jungerman’s use of geometric Afro-Surinamese textiles, clay and nails. Each fabric’s pattern and colors have specific meanings in the Winti religion. The clay was meant to rub on your face and body and acts like a charm to protect rituals from negative influences and, like African sculptures, each nail represents a wish or prayer. Jungerman also includes the visual of De Stijl, a Dutch movement in art and design founded in 1917 that began spiritual enlightenment and caused a decrease to the necessities of form and color, especially the use of the straight line. His sculptures and paintings thrived with references to Piet Mondrian’s grids and tablets and Gerrit Rietveld’s Red and Blue Chair, among others. Geometry is what brings together Jungerman’s cultural and artistic influences. The nature of the grid is a representation of Jungerman’s cultural and artistic identity, and it expresses a combination of individual feelings. The opposite horizontal and vertical lines that were involved with the craftsmanship are full of emotions and loaded with symbolic potential.   

Remy Jungerman - Horizontal Obeah GOLIO

Remy Jungerman - Pimba Cajana 

All of Jeannette Ehlers works are related to the Danish slave exchange in the provincial time. In her works she reveals an understanding of the frontier amnesia in Denmark. Atlantic went up against Denmark's quietness in regard to their presence with the Danish transatlantic oppression exchange, and through physical removal, the corporal figures are examples of annihilation of character, pioneer amnesia, and the refusal of slavery's presence inside Danish talk. Ehlers has a Danish mother and a Father from Trinidad, which adds additional solidarity to her works. Jeannette Ehlers’s work is better known as experimental nature. Ehlers 2009 video Black Magic at the White House is focused on a chapter in Danish history that was unrevealed. It was part of a severe participation in the slave trade and colonialism. Through her influence video, she puts under the microscope the Danish triangular trade across the Atlantic between Denmark, the Caribbean and the Gold Coast. In the video Ehlers performs a voodoo dance in a house in Marienborg, Copenhagen, which was built as a summer residence of Commander Olfert Fischer and later owned by several others of the era's trading men who created a great deal of wealth from the slave and sugar trade. Today Marienborg still plays an important role in Denmark, in terms of its position as the official residence of the country's prime minister. According to Thompson, “Technologies like film, television and radio were not just feature of the daily lives of a young generation, they had to become an integral part of how one understood the world” (Thompson 8). The video is described as a poetic performance that serves as a documentary and most importantly shows a reflection and memory of the Danish slave trade. Ehlers Black Magic at the White House studies the relationships between slave trade, economic wealth, and the ghostly value of artworks as possessions. The ceremony is therefore considered an exorcism of the artistic spirits of coloniality. 

Jeannette Ehlers 2009 video - Black Magic at the White House 

Jeannette Ehlers performs a voodoo dance in Marienborg  

Works Cited 

Thompson, N. (2015). Seeing power: Art and activism in the 21st century. Brooklyn, NY: Melville House.