Martinus is Gario's uncle. He left Curaçao as a young adult to study painting in Utrecht before returning to the island with his degree. Gario also came to study in Utrecht in 2002 but had never heard of the carnival celebrations. That was until his uncle handed him a brown paper bag with the films. After discovering what was on them, Gario produced several works departing from the history that was lying in his uncle’s shed. 

The work centers on marronage and Caribbean migration and presence in violent imperial centers. It is an intricate play on memory and resistance within the colonized territories in the Caribbean, specifically those that share continued occupation by the Netherlands. Through his work, Gario will also look at the significance of the city of Utrecht that hosted the negotiations for imperial powers in 1713 to conclude on the monopoly for trading abducted and enslaved Africans. In his work, generational colonial trauma and decolonial practices of refusal are highlighted. 

In English and Papiamentu
Approx. 75 minutes

Aftertalk on Thursday with Carolina Maciel de França & Quinsy Gario

Co-produced by Beursschouwburg
With the support of the Dutch Embassy in Brussels

WHO?

Quinsy Gario is an activist as well as a visual and performance artist from the Dutch Caribbean. His most well-known work, Zwarte Piet Is Racisme (2011–2012), critiqued the general knowledge surrounding the racist Dutch figure Zwarte Piet (Black Pete) and. Quinsy has an academic background in Gender Studies and Postcolonial Studies and is a graduate of the Master Artistic Research programme at The Hague’s Royal Academy of Art. 

Carolina Maciel de França (°1986) is an author, consultant and maker. She was born in Recife (Brazil) and lived in the Netherlands for a long time before moving to Antwerp in 2005. She graduated as a literary translator, but during and after her studies mainly worked as an intercultural activist, cultural project leader and moderator. She went through the bicultural leadership programme LinC Lage Landen in 2018 and started her own artistic practice. Carolina has been a member of De Samenstelling since 2020 and also made her debut that year with a short story in the literary anthology AFROLIT, edited by Ebissé Rouw and Dalilla Hermans.