Tamara Traxel

We are all threads of a long rope that goes back countless generations and through which everyone is connected. Which threads connect the different generations? How do we experience this connection? What liberates us and what oppresses us? What gets passed on? The chair refers to the effect of time, the past that continues into the present. Long Story is about my grandmother, a strong woman who got Hansen’s disease at a young age. She was banished to a leprosy colony and quarantined for life. This colony was a former sugar plantation, a similar place to where her ancestors worked and lived as enslaved.

In many cultures a lot is shared with each other while eating! Which stories do we tell each other and which stories do we tell ourselves… what do we share with others, memories, ideas for the future? What stories do we not tell because they are too painful, because they expose something that should rather remain hidden. The table is covered with different types of fabrics such as batik. The well-known Delft blue tiles from the 16th century have been replaced in this installation by tiles with their own multicolored print. A reference to the colonial past of the Netherlands. The VOC transported the blue and white Chinese porcelain from which the Delft blue tiles originated from and became a cheap alternative.

Impressions of my travels through SouthEast Asia