About
  Me

Lichaam Als Archief

Lichaam Als Archief (Body As Archive) is an artistic practice in which the body functions as both a repository of memory

and a carrier of Surinamese Maroon intergenerational stories, culture, and artistic traditions.

 

Mijn creatieve reis als artistieke thuiskomst

At the age of fourteen, I emigrated to the Netherlands. In 2019,

I began a deeply personal journey to explore the cultural significance of my Surinamese Maroon heritage.

For me, art is a way to heal, to connect, and to remember.

It is my way of saying, "I exist. My culture exists. My story matters." I am not only an artist, but also a storyteller, cultural bearer, and researcher. What distinguishes my practice is that

I do not see art as an end in itself, but as a means of preserving and sharing cultural knowledge. Through my work,

I create bridges between generations, communities,

and histories, ensuring that stories that might otherwise be forgotten continue to live on through art.

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Rooted in my experience as a Surinamese Maroon woman

and artist, my practice explores how oral traditions, rituals,

and crafts, such as hair braiding, the embroidery of the pangi (the traditional Maroon wrap cloth), and tembé woodcarving, function as living systems for transmitting cultural knowledge across generations. Because the Surinamese Maroon community has historically relied on oral rather than written traditions, much of this cultural heritage remains vulnerable

to loss. Oral traditions play a vital role in preserving collective memory and cultural identity, yet they require continuous transmission to endure. Through my work, I reimagine these fragile forms of heritage by documenting them, interpreting them through a contemporary artistic lens, and transforming them into living artworks. In doing so, I seek not only to preserve cultural memory, but also to ensure that these traditions remain visible, relevant, and accessible for future generations.

 

Through textiles, hair sculptures, digital media, and visual art,

I create spaces where past and present converge, allowing forgotten stories to find their voice once again. Each work is a ritual of remembrance,

a meeting point of identity, cultural heritage, ancestral knowledge, care, spirituality, and imagination. The body becomes an archive:

a living, breathing repository of memory that preserves tradition while shaping the future. My practice invites audiences to experience heritage not as something fixed in the past, but as something continually reimagined, embodied, and carried forward.

 

Within lLichaam Als Archief (Body as Archive), I develop artistic projects that place intergenerational knowledge transmission at their core,

with the community as an active collaborator and the audience as a witness.

As an artist, my aim is not only to preserve cultural heritage,

but also to reinterpret and renew it through a contemporary artistic lens.

In this way, my practice creates a living archive: a dynamic space where communities can recognize, reconnect with, and pass on their histories, identities, and cultural knowledge to future generations.

While my work is rooted in the experiences and traditions

of the Surinamese Maroon community, it is not created exclusively for that community. It speaks to universal themes of identity, memory, loss, resilience, belonging, and cultural continuity. Through textiles, sculpture, digital media, and participatory research, I invite audiences from all backgrounds to reflect on their own relationship with ancestry, heritage,

and the stories that shape who they are.

My practice seeks to create spaces where people, regardless of age, gender, cultural background, or identity, can recognize themselves

in the shared human experience of searching for connection,

remembering the past, and imagining the future.

Bringing together community knowledge and contemporary artistic practice, Body as Archive contributes to the safeguarding of living cultural heritage while opening new perspectives for dialogue across generations, cultures, and diasporic communities. Intangible cultural heritage is sustained

through the continuous transmission of knowledge, practices,

and memories from one generation to the next, making community participation essential to its survival.

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Through my professional practice, I aim to contribute to contemporary debates on the decolonization of cultural heritage, the significance

of cultural objects, and the ways in which histories are constructed, preserved, and represented. Building on my education at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, I bring together artistic practice and theoretical research to make complex historical and cultural questions accessible to diverse audiences. My work is inherently interdisciplinary, combining visual art, performance, archival research, and critical heritage studies.

By integrating artistic research with material experimentation

and participatory methods, I develop projects that critically engage with decolonization, cultural representation, collective memory,

and the future of living heritage. Community participation

and the transmission of knowledge are central to my practice,

reflecting the understanding that cultural heritage is sustained through

the active involvement of the people who create, preserve, and pass it on.

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Motto

When we stop passing on our crafts, we lose more than a skill, we lose our heritage.