Non-fiction short film, installation, 40 min, 2022-2024.
Completed. Premiere as single-channel film TBA.
A search for the memory and legacy of performer and co-director Mathieu Wijdeven's great-great-grandfather: Surinamese artist G.G.T. Rustwijk (1862-1914). Rustwijk navigated post-slavery Suriname as a playwright and performer, a multidisciplinary artist, as a man of colour, and as an early critic of the Dutch colonial regime – before ultimately being forgotten. Using historical locations, site-specific performances, interviews and reimagined archive materials, we search for Rustwijk's "light", and what remains of it in modern-day Suriname.
The project was presented as a 6-channel video installation in Theater Rotterdam, as part of the TRipp space residency in the summer of 2022. Presented on a theatre stage, the installation gives the research a physical presence, and puts the audience in the viewpoint of the performer. Locations in Suriname enter into dialogue with the theatre stage in the Netherlands – culminating in a climax in which two theaters, one in Suriname and one in the Netherlands are overlayed. The installation was shown again at Schouwburg Kustmin, Energiehuis Dordrecht in 2023.