Positions: Afterlives
on-going program 2023-2024
Positions is Stroom's program focusing on artists from The Hague and their contemporary art practices. With Positions: Afterlives, Stroom introduces a series of events in which artists present imaginations of the impact of the Dutch and Hague colonial past in the present. What factors, narratives and systems shape our current reality, and in what ways do these legacies affect the present? What are the 'afterlives' of The Hague's colonial past?
This year marks 150 years since the Dutch abolition of slavery. It marked the legal end of a range of dehumanizing laws that were designed and effectuated in The Hague. What are the contemporary effects of 400 years of colonial policies on our cultural archive, which bears many traces of this history? The 'cultural archive' is a term coined by researcher and writer Gloria Wekker to describe the multifaceted culture of culturally accepted norms, behaviors and manners as expressed in the media, politics, education and popular culture.
Positions: Afterlives explores how artists in The Hague shape the experiences and realities that emerge from the violent history of slavery. How do we remember and imagine collective traumas? In what ways can (re)imagining this history - through arts - open up space for collectivity?
The program consists of public events, movie nights and other presentations at Stroom. Artists are invited to present perspectives and narratives through their work, meandering between personal and collective histories and speculations on the future.
Museumnacht Den Haag 2023
7 October 2023
Sarojini Lewis
24 November 2023
Travis Geertruida
24 January 2024
Ruben La Cruz & Karolien Helweg
12 April 2024
Sabine Groenewegen
16 May 2024
- 07 Oct '23 - 31 Dec '24
- Stroom Den Haag, Hogewal 1-9, The Hague
