Introduction
With Grounding – Stories of Migration, FOTODOK ✕ BredaPhoto Festival present works by seven artists that tell stories of first generation migration – people relocating by choice or by circumstance. All the subjects in these images are confronted with the same questions: what is the influence of ‘place’ on identity, and can we ever call our new surroundings home. They are split into parts, caught between past and present, and finally the urge to define a new sense of home – and a new sense of self – becomes stronger than ever.
Daria Tuminas of FOTODOK is the curator of this exposition.
Projects
British-South African documentary photographer Giya Makondo-Wills (1994) settled in Utrecht’s Kanaleneiland in late 2020. The area was originally conceived as a post-war utopia with a white indigenous population in mind. Now, it’s the neighbourhood where the future of the country is born and raised, where emblems from foreign lands are flown with pride.
For the outsider of this quarter the area is full of strange noises, smells, sensations – the outsider feels a sense of displacement . These sensations are familiar to the immigrant, adaptation is the first thing they have to learn. In “A Neighboorhood” (images 1-3) Giya Makondo-Wills asks the audience to consider what constitutes a good immigrant. How does society continue to shape racial and socio-economic segregation? How does a country’s history contribute to the social tensions that define the current political climate?
Kyiv, Kryvyi Rih, Uzhgorod, Mali Selmentsi, Kosice, Budapest, Munich… a winding flight before finally arriving in the Netherlands. The project My Mom Wants To Go Back Home (images 4-6) documents the journey Ukrainian photographer Hanna Hrabarska (1986) and her mother, Iryna, were forced to take after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Hrabarska’s documentation of this unimaginable journey is meticulous, revealing moments of fragile transition throughout. Each movement we see is a step away from home; meals are hastily arranged on the go; people wave goodbyes and emotions constantly shift.
Only small , everyday objects become an anchor with reality. Whilst Iryna is at the centre of the story, her separate portraits collectively form one – defined by a deep sense of daughterly love, care and affection. Having been granted ‘temporary protection’ in the Netherlands, Hrabarska and her mother have endeavoured to establish a temporary home here. But isn’t the idea of a temporary home an oxymoron? Connecting with a new space demands considerable effort, pain and hope – and the heart, meanwhile, longs to be elsewhere. There is a strength, though, in being able to live through uncertainty: without knowing how temporary the temporary is, or how much of a home this home can become.
Kevin Osepa (Curaçao, 1994) is a familiar face at BredaPhoto – he presented a memorable exhibition during the 2022 edition, and won the same year the Golden Calf for Best Short Film at the Netherlands Film Festival.
In Entre Dòmi i Sawaka (Between Dòmi and Sawaka) (images 7-10) Kevin Osepa returns to the place that shaped him: Domi, a neighbourhood in Willemstad, Curaçao. Midnight is the time when spirits manifest; a vulnerable hour when the air is loaded with transformation, when everything is possible, and when the artist starts his walks.
Osepa invites his family members – his father, aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces – to join him, to create images together. During this collaborative process Osepa listens carefully to oral traditions as related by his family. From these words, visions, places and senses new images, new myths slowly blossom – and as a result, we, the viewer catch a sight of something hard to fathom: the invisible connections between everything that exists.
Marwan Magroun (1985) is a Dutch-Tunesiian lens-based artist, and since 2022 Fotograaf des Vaderlands (national photographer, think poet laureate)
“When children from bicultural backgrounds look at images of their parents, they hardly see connection between those people in the photos – while such intimacy really exists. Looking at my own parents, I recognise that when they came to the Netherlands, they were concerned with surviving.”
Marwan Magroun’s Intimacy (images 11-13) series creates tender depictions of couples from his parents’ generation. The gestures with which they demonstrate their connection, are filled with love and warmth. In fluid, mutual movements, the images radiate a deep sense of togetherness, expressed in pairs of images rather than in single photographs.
Nael Quraishi’s project This is home after all (image 14) combines two realities, juxtaposing life in the Netherlands, where Nael Quraishi (1994) now resides, and life in Pakistan, where he spent his early years. Throughout the post-migrant lens, the artist looks out past the windows of his living rooms, observing surroundings: “All my senses are fixated by slight glimpses into the lives of neighbouring families. There is a comfort in the sounds of afternoon chaos from the streets behind. The breeze perfumed with the savoury scent of onions, garlic and ginger frying. The dominant sounds of men in the distance. The caws of a crow perched by my window paired with the buzzing of generator units, interrupted only by the distant thuds of a tram on its tracks.”
Transforming the scenes beyond his window, Quraishi reaches out into another reality. He opens up a space for contemplation, for building connections between geographies, and for noticing mundane details of daily life that bring memories of home. In the end, what we see is a landscape of worded reflections and in-betweenness: a recreation of a mental image in an attempt at diasporic home-making.
In 1972, Sebastian (1993) and Tyler (1990) Koudijzer’s Javanese grandparents left their country of birth: Suriname. More than 50 years ago, the Koudijzer brothers took their grandparents back, seeking out important sites of memory – like the place where Grandma Watinie grew up, or the church where she and Grandpa Iksan were baptised Christian. Together, they journeyed to Cola Creek, where the grandparents’ first date took place in the 1960s, and where they got married years later. The family also visited the abandoned refinery of the Mariënburg Sugar Company, where Iksan once came to work as an overseer. Now overgrown by trees and plants, the site was closed shortly after Suriname gained independence in 1975.
The Sugarcoated Venture (images 15-17) hones in on spaces where private stories intertwine with narratives of a colonial past. The artists’ grand- parents are themselves the direct descendants of indentured labourers, whilst their family movements across the world – in this case, from Java to Suriname to the Netherlands – were shaped by broader colonial contexts. The images that make up The Sugarcoated Venture represent an archive under construction, and an attempt to puzzle together elements of a dislocated history.
Thana Faroq’s project How Shall We Greet the Sun (image18 -19) is selected & exhibited by the curators of BredaPhoto in general, as well as by the curator of the Grounding Project. I don’t want to copy the text over here, I kindly ask our readers to take a look at the third contribution in Carré Chassé.
Stadsgalerij, Oude vest 34, Breda
Tuesday – Sunday: 10:00 to 17:00 hours
No ticket is needed for this location & is accessible for people reduced mobility
Artists: Giya Makondo-Wills, Hanna Hrabarska, Kevin Osepa, Marwan Magroun, Nael Quraishi, Sebastian Koudijzer & Tyler Koudijzer, Thana Faroq
John Devos
[email protected]
