Het Nieuwe Instituut
Museumpark 25, Rotterdam
18:30-19:30
As part of Het Nieuwe Instituut’s on-going research on BURN-OUT, a series of performative and participatory Anti-Burn-Out activities will run alongside and before the weekly Thursday Night Live! programme. The clay performance Di tera nos ta bin di tera nos ta bai (For Dust You Are, and to Dust You Shall Return), by visual and performance artist Najendra (Nash) Caldera, explores the notions of burn-out in relation to the colonial past and its aftermaths in this post-colonial era.
Born and raised on the island of Curaçao, Nash explores her identity as a Black Queer Woman, connecting to her roots, and simultaneously raising questions about the forms of (non) belonging she has experienced in the Netherlands. In her work, Nash researches the colonial history of Curaçao and the role of religion, belief and traditional ritual, as tools for both domination and resistance. Despite the imposition of Catholicism, enslaved people created syncretism -such as Santería, through merging their own beliefs with that of Catholicism.
Nash brings the Afro-Caribbean religion, including Santeria, as well as the superstitions she grew up with, to the Netherlands. Her aim is to create a ground for herself, a home in a territory otherwise devoid from ritual.
This performance, made by women and representing black women, is based on the bible verses Ecclesiastes 3:20 and Genesis 3:19, in a deliberate reference to the narrative of the Creation: we are dust and to dust we should return. Dust is here combined with water. In the Yoruba pantheon, water represents the Orisha Yemaya. Some of the Orishas stories, also portray Yemaya as the mother of all the Orishas and the creator of the world. The work was first created for Sculpture International Rotterdam.
Nash will be accompanied by Steven Juliana on the Djembe.