Curaçao Layers consists of three parts. The work starts at the beginning: ceramics as a bridge between then and now. A recurring subject in my work is the graphic design on the ceramics of the Indigenous people of Curaçao, the Caiquetío, and the mark they made on Curaçao’s civilisation when the Spanish arrived. Ceramic is a durable material that can last long into the future, but which also reaches back thousands of years into the past. That is why the first part is made up of the graphic motifs that the Caiquetío people used on their ceramic vases and bowls, and on shards. The decorations were painted with iron oxide, a pigment they also used, as did the people before them, who created rock paintings with it. (Photo: World Museum Amsterdam)

The second part of my work is about freedom and ownership and features manumission letters printed on fabric. These letters were documents serving as evidence that you were a free man or woman. Likewise, they were also tangible proof that you had once been someone’s property and were not entitled to call yourself a human being until 1 July 1863, when slavery was abolished in ‘the West’. The manumission letters I chose are from the National Archives in Curaçao. The letters contain the surnames of former slave owners and enslaved people, names that are still common in Curaçao today. In the third part of the installation, have letters made of wood.