In a way, if the U.S. had (had) a Black Chief Photographer photographing President Obama along with the 1st Black Family, this would have been a perquisite for the future of the United States & with the racial issues in the United States being on an uneven foundation, politically as well as societal, knowing that a Black photographer witnessed & photographically recorded such a milestone in U.S. politics, would have been a visual freedom, worth looking forward to.
Van Oldenborgh’s Cinema Olanda – and actually her entire oeuvre – could be read as an aphasia-countering therapeutic session of a nation partially in denial, and partially unaware – such as the art critics so tellingly demonstrated. An endeavour that contributes to the birth of a new generation wanting and willing to finally come to terms with (post-) colonial melancholia and related repressive structures. These are the people who will be the forefront of a collective future: the unquestionable stars of a new generation.
The artists are reclaiming the street, personalizing public space, critically reflecting on how it has been, and is continuously, appropriated by others and the agendas they push. In entering this realm, with their own work in the form of posters, these artists alter the urban fabric of the city through its material form and resulting dialogue. They create physical sites of resistance to the dominant hegemony and communicate to people who take up and occupy these everyday spaces – roadsides, bus stops, estates, street corners etc.
The miracle is, in fact, that, given the overwhelming odds against women, or blacks, so many of both have managed to achieve so much sheer excellence, in the face of violent, selective and shifting definitions of history and art, and in the face of direct suppression, omission, gatekeeping, lack of transparency, and outright unprincipled opportunism of unscrupulous gallerists, and their ilk.
Their aim was to raise the profile of black artists and the Afro-Caribbean community through a series of sculptures, paintings and exhibitions. It was also an eye-opener for contemporary white artists as this political movement encouraged conversations on art reflecting culture and the state of how mainstream art did not include the experiences of the black population.