Dutch army recruting shirt pops up in Accra/Ghana “ Geschikt / Ongeschikt “ (“suited / not suited” )
Anatopsims A “OMSK” project
This project called “Anatopisms” shows how i relate design,and cultural heritage.
My autonomous work is centered around issues of identity, authenticity and cultural heritage.
This is also true in my applied work as photographer and designer. In an increasingly fast tempo, our society is being transformed into a strongly capitalistic, homogenous monoculture. The necessity of allowing oneself the freedom to work in an associative manner without fixed goals becomes even more pressing when one considers how full of restrictions and obligations this life has become. Inspired by this freedom of association, I record situations that encompass my own and others' experiences in this fast-changing culture.
I am fascinated by objects, images and people that appear in settings other than the cultures where they originated. In other words, I am interested in cases of 'cultural alienation'. In a quickly globalizing world, symbols and objects from an unknown world are suddenly encountered in a known world. In this context, consider a young boy paddling a canoe on the Congo river and wearing a tee-shirt with the logo from a builder in Venlo, or an Albert Heijn supermarket bag being used at a market in Istanbul. The term for this phenomenon is 'anatopism'; when people and things are found outside of their 'proper' place.
Dutch names along the former slave-coast. Ms.vanderPuye in her “Rotterdam/Botlek” dress
Another fascinating example of this phenomenon is the Dutch company Vlisco, that designs and produces 'typically African' wax prints. These designs are considered to be the 'Armani' of haute couture in Africa. This is remarkable, when one takes into consideration the great differences between the visual cultures of the Netherlands and Africa. The example of this well-known instance of cultural displacement has inspired me to create my own designs.
One of the designs is inspired on a Google screenshot from an aerial view above Rotterdam/Botlek (oil tanks) I transformed this aerial view into a textile-design, and I gave the textile to a Ghanaian woman with a Dutch surname who I “discovered” on Facebook by combining typical West-African first-names with Dutch surnames. Because of the (slave) trade you can still find nowadays many Dutch surnames along the former slave-coast such as:” Vanderpuye,Bartels,Dolphijn,Huiydekoper,Daendels,Ulzen,Halm,Van Boven etc.etc.
During the past year, I have been working on the project Anatopisms. It is a project that focuses on 'lost' people and things that pop up in settings other than the ones they were originated. The first part, Ghana in the Netherlands, resulted in an exhibition with the theater company OMSK in Dordrecht, the Netherlands and in the Bourla Theatre in Antwerp, Belgium. Anatopisms was part of a larger project entitled Lost on the Map, in which a group of independent artists collaborated in creating works on the theme of 'losing one's way'. During the work period in Dordrecht (OMSK/Dordrecht) , I set off with my camera, trying to make contact with the African, namely Ghanian, community there. The wax-prints formed the main connection and source of inspiration during these meetings. During my visits with the different Ghanian communities in the Netherlands, I photographed African people dressed in the wax-prints in a Dutch context. I also designed three colorful new prints. The prints show typical elements of Dutch culture: fast food containers, caravans and garbage trucks.
Even though the first part of the project Anatopisms I: Ghana in the Netherlands is now completed, my quest for images and objects that have been removed from their original context is still not complete. To further explore some of the aspects of the alienation that is a result of this fast- globalizing world, it is also important for me to travel to Ghana in search of signs of Dutch displacement in Ghana.
The Dutch and the (slave) trade in Ghana. This left canon is used as a bench for decades
2) the Netherlands in Ghana
As a continuation of the project that began in the Netherlands, the goal of Anatopisms II: the Netherlands in Ghana, is to search for traces of the Netherlands in Ghana, and to leave behind new traces in the form of my textile designs.
The location I have chosen for this research is The area between Tema/Accra and Elmina, cities in Ghana that comes very close to the geographical middle expressed in coördinates. In the coming year, an excellent place from which to continue the search for objects and situations in which cultural alienation plays a central role. I will focus once more on making photographs of my textile designs in a Ghanian context, as well as documenting any current and historical traces of the Netherlands to be found there. In this way, a document will be created in which the connection more than 300 years old between Ghana and the Netherlands plays a central role, and in which I will also play my own part, however small that may be.
In my quest for 'Anatopisms', Elmina becomes not only a geographical but also a social metaphor for uprootedness, alienation and the experience of losing one's way. I will go in search of 'the Netherlands in Ghana' in Elmina and in Ghana's capital city, Accra. However, I will not restrict myself to the historical traces of our communal history, but will be especially aware of the contemporary signs of this interconnectedness.
I will take with me the textile designs from Anatopisms I, which will continue to be, as they were in the Netherlands, the starting point for making contact with people. I will leave the textiles behind in Ghana, so that they can start to lead a new life, allowing us to endlessly fantasize about what might have happened to the prints covered in images of garbage trucks, recycling icons and cleaning implements. The possible situations in which the textiles are used will be photographed, and I will take these images with me back to the Netherlands, completing the process of having 'lost my way'.
Back in the Netherlands, Anatopisms II will be presented together with Anatopisms I. With this project, my attempt is to offer a personal, contemplative and visual reflection on both the alienation and interconnectedness that exists between these two countries. At the same time, this project also creates a more general picture of the way in which globalization works and the impossibility of predicting the influence of its outcomes.
Paul Koenen
“Recycle” theme” Stop ! No more garbage !
I went to the council off the Ga-Chief in Dutch Accra to introduce my project and asked for their permission to make pictures in their neighborhood. After explaining my quest for anatopisms through a “talker/spokesman” and showing proud my “Friet and caravan” textile design one of the men from the council looked at me questionable: “Is it icecream” And their you go… an anatopism is born !
Is it ice-cream ?
Festas and Janet in their “Friet and mayonaise/caravan-theme”
Janet next to the Jamestown lighthouse.
A Dutch bus from Ballast Nedam in Accra/Ghana
The 103 year old former Queen of Dutch Komenda/Ghana
Inside “Fort Vredenburg” in Dutch Komenda/Ghana
Acknowledged as king of Akra by Jan Pranger of Dutch. Accra/Ghana
National orange Dutch soccer-team shirt.