During festival as Kwakoe and Keti Koti guest curator Imara Limon put the question to dark youngsters "Who is your role model?". Many visitors had to think about it and watched her stare.
Limon was still surprised about it. Many people came with names of major American stars like Snoop Dogg. No, I would say, someone who is important to you. Or at least someone from the city. "
Father or mother as a role model
Despite the fact that not everyone could immediately call a name came finally well within sufficient role models to fill a hall in the Amsterdam Museum. Opens tomorrow in the museum's exhibition Black Amsterdam, compiled by Limon.
In total collected fifty role models, ranging from well-known Dutch and Humberto Tan to lesser-known role models and cultural entrepreneur Angelo Bromet from Southeast. But there were also young people with their father or mother, or their football. "
Imara Limon, guest curator Amsterdam Museum
To included in the hall of fame to be had to be fulfilled conditions. The petitioners had to tell why their role model was important to them. Limon: "And we asked people to lend a portrait or an object that tells something about the role model.
"Peggy Brandon got the angisa of her great-grandmother, a freed slave in Suriname. The head scarf could be folded, so that slaves could exchange messages in different ways. This angisa says, let them talk. "
The exhibition highlights the compiler, is primarily intended as an invitation to further discuss the importance of black role models. "The dominant perspective in the Netherlands is white," Limon said."That does something with black children who live here. They grow up with the lingering sense that important people have a different color. Therefore, black role models is of great importance. They show that it is possible to achieve a special position. That inspires and encourages. "
The latter is precisely the starting point of the first Black Achievement Month which started this week. A month later, in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, with numerous activities discussed the contributions of black Dutch society.
The latter is precisely the starting point of the first Black Achievement Month which started this week. A month later, in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, with numerous activities discussed the contributions of black Dutch society.
The exhibition Black Amsterdam is part of the program. "An interesting question is the cause of the invisibility of many black role models," Limon said. "For that reason alone is such a theme month worth it."
Phenomenon
Limon hopes her exhibition can contribute to that search. "By conversation to engage with visitors about the phenomenon of role model. Who are they? What do they do? How is it that we hear so little of them?
"Everyone knows Humberto Tan, but how many people can say the name of a black scientist? And why is that? Black Achievement Month began in Nemo with an exhibition for children about black inventors. I thought that was very good. "
Color is also missing in the museum world, finds Limon, who while studying art history, specializing in the lack of representation in the cultural institutions.
"The museums in the Netherlands are perfectly white institutions. The perspective is white. The Rijksmuseum received much publicity with the removal of ethnographic terms like Negro and Indian from the collection, but otherwise not happen to me a lot to adjust the perspective of history. You can see more: small changes to show good will. "
Limon pointing around him: "It is wonderful that I can make an exhibition guest curator here, but also the Amsterdam Museum, please note the museum that collects the stories of this multicultural city and says, thinks and acts predominantly white. But that awareness is present and it is up to people like me for it some extra to keep pushing. "
