Watamula
23 September - 12th October 2000

About the Site
The Watamula International Artists' Workshop took place at Landhuis Knip in Curaçao between September 21 and October 12, 2000. Landhuis Knip, once a plantation home, was the site of a major slave revolt in 1795. The signal for the rebellion came from plantation Kenepa (Knip), situated in Bandabou, the property of Shon Caspar Lodewijk van Uytrecht. Tula, the leader of the rebellion, belonged to this plantation. Together with Bastiaan Carpata and others, Tula prepared the decisive strategy for a battle that lasted almost two months. A battle in which the most oppressed and humiliated group of people, the slaves, had decided to unite and fight for freedom. They were conscious of the disgust the government showed towards blacks and the slave population and they were aware of the punishment they would receive if their battle were to fail. But they were absolutely convinced that their cause was just. Was it not true that white people fought each other over the right of ownership of this island - and were not free black men and mulattos among them?

The slaves could not leave written accounts of what happened between mid-august and the beginning of October of 1795. What exists in the archives are the reports and court decisions recorded by the dominant white administrators of the time.

August 17, 1795
Early in the morning, after the bell had sounded to announce the beginning of the working day, 40 to 50 slaves of the plantation on Kenepa got together on the square in front of the plantation house and told their owner, van Uytrecht, that they were not willing to work for him anymore. He told them to deposit their complaints with the Lieutenant Governor at Fort Amsterdam.

At that point, the rebellious slaves freed those who had been punished and locked up in a cage on the plantation. Afterwards they marched towards plantation Sta. Cruz where they joined forces with slaves coming from other plantations.

In the mean time, van Uytrecht had sent his son on horseback to Governor de Veer in town with a handwritten note. At seven o'clock that night the colonial council held an urgent meeting and decided to:
1. Call upon all free black and mulatto captains to patrol all night and report immediately how many men were ready to leave for Bandabou, if that should be necessary.
2. Alert Commander Wierts of the navy ship Medea, moored at the harbour, to defend Fort Amsterdam.

August 18, 1795
The slaves started marching in the direction of Porto Mari - on their way they crossed the plantations San Nicholas, Santa Martha and San Juan. Their strategy was to advance towards town but also keeping an eye open for hiding places and block advances of reinforcements arriving from town. The plantation owners had left their houses and fled towards town, leaving the food and water supplies in the hands of the slaves. Around that time, Louis Mercier, one of the leaders, went back to plantation Kenepa to motivate those who stayed behind, and to get weapons and powder at the fortifications. At Fontein, Perdro Wacaww captured and killed the Dutch owner Sabel, who was the first white victim of the rebels.

Mercier got weapons and a canon from plantation Fontein and made preparations to occupy the hill close to the country house from which they could also control the movements to and from Bandabou. From this moment on, Tula and his comrades could count on the help of the majority of the slaves and free blacks of Bandabou.

According to statistics, Bandabou had between 4 and 5000 inhabitants in 1795 - the majority were slaves. Even though the grounds were called plantations, they did not grow staples such as sugar or tobacco, which were common on the other Caribbean islands. Lacking rain, only essentials to feed the population such as corn, yams or fruit trees could be grown here. The highest amount of slaves owned by one master was 400. These bigger slave populations were needed to harvest salt from the salt pans.

In town meanwhile,the colonial council had decided to guard Rodeweg with a group of 80 free blacks and 8 white marines, in order to defend the city against any attack of the rebels. Furthermore, they decided to send an army of 60 black and white soldiers under the command of Lieutenant Pleeger de Bandabou.

They underestimated the offensive power of the rebels, but were also cautious to leave town with sufficient military defence. In those turbulent days, many enemy ships were cruising the Caribbean Sea, and pirates were also active.

August 19, 7995
Lieutenant Pleeger suffered a defeat at the plantation of Old St. Marie. Plantation owners had formed an army of volunteers on horseback. The rebel slaves were now considered a threat to the dominant white society.

The colonial council sent a bigger army under the command of Captain van Westerholt to Bandabou. Van Westerhold had orders to offer clemency to the rebels in order to save lives.

Father Schinck, a priest of the Fransiscan order, had tried to convince the rebels to give up the battle. Tula told him: "they have treated us very badly. We don't want to harm anybody but we want freedom. Is not everyone on earth descendant of Adam and Eve. did I do wrong to free 22 brothers from prison where they were unjustly put? Ai, father, even an animal gets better treatment."

One has to know, as background information, that the protestant Dutch considered their religion to be exclusively for white people. They never baptised slaves, contrary to the catholic church.

Tula demanded freedom like his brothers in Haiti, even after van Westerholt had offered a pardon. A decisive battle took place at Ser'i Fontein (a small hill) and was lost by the rebels who had to mourn many deaths. Finally they lost the battle and the leaders were captured and "brought to justice".

Louis Mercier was caught in the vicinity of Landhuis Kenepa. Tula was captured on September 18th by a slave of the same plantation. Carpata and Pedro Wacaaw fell into a trap set-up by slaves on plantation San Juan, one day later. Those slaves stayed loyal to their white owners, not knowing that it would take until 1863 to gain freedom.

Tula's body was cut open, his face burned. Finally he was beheaded. Carpata had to watch first and then received the same punishment. The hands of Pedro Wacaaw were cut off, he was dragged by a horse and his head was smashed with a big hammer. The executions took place on October 3rd, 1795. Louis Mercier and others were hanged. In all, 26 rebels received the death penalty. Free blacks who had helped the rebellious slaves were banned from the island.

In memory of Tula and his comrades, a statue has been erected on Rif, the very spot where their heads were put on stakes as a warning to the whole population.

Extracted from text by Tony Monsanto

The site 'Land House Knip'

The Carib 4c Working group

1. Bob Marley's words from "Redemption Song"
2. Watamula is a word for blow holes along the rocky sea coast.
3. Landhouse Knip is a colonial Dutch plantation house, the site of the 1795 slave rebellion in Curaçao.

Herman Van Bergen

In earlier times people called Curaçao "islas de los gigantes", island of giants; another time, "islas inutiles", island without any value. These two names echoed through my head during the workshop.

In the back of Landhuis Knip I made a cactus flower, dedicated to history and the surrounding ecology. The flower is made of fallen cactus branches, laying on the ground, they will sprout after a while. The flower is laying on the ground like a carpet of needles - useless, the form is square; I made it with real dead cacti (cut through the middle) the starform of the axed cactus is strengthened by the kabuya di diablo (devils hair) an orange coloured parasitic plant. The heart of the flower, the star, is filled with laying branches which will grow and be a tower of living cactus!

Whilst working on this useful/useless flower, the workshop struggled on with its historical pain of hatred and torture, a gigantic expression of human kind, one of the things we all carry with us. I wonder, "Is there are way out of here?" How can we escape, or better yet, overcome or win over this disastrous way of human behaviour which still goes on and on? My stairway to heaven, from cactus, expresses this psychological historical dilemma in human nature. The stairway is not to be climbed, it is a pure symbol of things we can't reach but try. We have to deal with the things we have, which means also the ugly things. There ain't no heaven without a hell!

Osaira Muyale

The blue reservoir

By choosing the water reservoir which was used to ferment indigo plant, I used water as a metaphor for soothing the past, washing away the
pain, and to understand life. Life is like a theatre script but with real individuals. When a backpack was found in the reservoir with stolen belongings of a homosexual mixed race couple (including intimate photographs), their lives crossed my path and we were bound together by fate and by this location with all its historical connotations. This event of real life reflects the view of art as an agent of revelation, where history and architecture become the symbolic mediator. The process that got an additional boost by this chance encounter evolved into a ritualistic bath where I submerged myself in my needs to go beyond the limits beyond my fears and to submerge myself in the exchange of unconditional love. It was a declaration of love for my white homosexual friend and submission to the sensual love of my black friend. By using myself as a medium for love to be transmitted unconditionally I learned a great lesson of love which is selflessness.

A letter to Sharlon

As the days went by
You listened like a lullaby
Your tender words
Your tender eyes
O,God
I said
This is a friend goodnight
Your skin so dye
My eyes closed shy
I will never
forget

And Tell you
Good by
For the silence
You shared and
the trust so divine
Me for the lesson I wished
You for the love to forgive
Thank you my friend
You showed me now
You showed me how
I love you

A letter to Wilson

As the days went by
You were like an angel
Walking in the sky
So, beautiful, so divine
O, God , I said
This is a friend goodnight
Your skin so pale
My heart a butterfly
I only wished
I lonely cried
I only thought
I hoped and tried
You be the one
Another time
May life forgive
May life can give
one soul
one mind
one body
A wish
Thank you my friend
You showed me now
You showed me how
I love you

Subba Ghosh

UNDA TULA TA ? (WHERE IS TULA?)

MEMORY AND HISTORY
Oral history is the product of the collective memory. It sites itself on the palimpsest borders of these two territories of the personal memories and the public history. Who maps these territories, who defines these discourses is at the core of the struggle for an identity. Curacao is sleeping. The struggle of Tula the slave leader remains beneath the surface pulsating like a volcano on the brink of exploding. The denial of history, the marginalisation and appropriation of narratives have always created vacuums that if unaddressed, lead to upheavals. My work is not just an intervention, but is an act of transgression. As Bataille on transgression says:

"A feeling of danger - yet not so pressing as to preclude any delay - places us before a nauseating void. A void in the face of which our being is plenum, threatened with losing its plenitude, both desiring and fearing to lose it. As if the consciousness of plenitude demanded the state of plenitude demanded a state of uncertainty, of suspension" (George Bataille,Transgression, The Phaedra Complex, p101)

The preservation of Landhuis Knip in the face of denial of the history of the majority of the population is an act of betrayal. It is the void that faces the plenum of the island. Landhuis Knip to me is not a testimony to the flowering of history but a monument to tragedy across generation. It is the unmarked grave of unrequited aspirations and untold stories. The mapping of its architecture is the structure of the denial that can be heard as the winds that moan through its shutters. Landhuis faced me as a void awaiting the exploration of the extreme and the hazardous. I faced the house as a slave waiting to be freed, bound by the absence of any narrative. So my act on it would be that act of transgression which in its desire would open old wounds only in order to heal them.

TULA: Tula has no face. He is like the wind that blows in the valley. There are only whispered stories and songs. He has no family on the island. Like me he was an outsider. He is only a presence. So I cast his black shadow on the Landhuis. His only knowledge is that of how he was captured by his own, tortured and beheaded. The colonisers thought that the dismemberment of his body world remove him from the annals of history - on the contrary he has spread into the collective memory of the people. The face of Tula split into two straddles the entrance of the Landhuis. As you enter you enter through him and he enters your subconscious as his narrative merges with his.

THE COLOUR BLACK: Black is just not the colour of the skin. It is the colour of the hidden history. It can absorb light; it is the colour of the shadow.. Conceptualised only in black the images in their blackness invade the surface of the building, creeping up to the edge of the roof where it meets the freedom of the sky.

It is to fill the void.

Subba Ghosh
October 2000

In Memory (Song of Tula)
Dedicated to Osaira
By Subba Ghosh

Remember me not
For victories and conquests,
But for my pilgrimage
To where my lover rests.

Remember me not
For my blade and its steel,
But for the wound
That refuses to heal.

Remember me not
For monuments across the land,
But for my ashes,
Spread in the sand.

Remember me not
For the passing of my death,
But for the life,
In my last Breath.

Renwick Heronimo:

My work at Watamula was a reflection on an apocalyptic moment wherein this architypical experience of the unification of opposites is relived (good and bad, strong and weak, male and female, man and nature). It was a surrender to nature and the extremes it incorporates. It was the assimilation and the liberation of historical traumas. Man in relation to his own nature and its reflection on the others. In one of the performances, "surrender" I stripped away my clothing while walking into an impenetrable thorn bush leaving the scratch marks on my naked body. In submitting to nature I tried to create an aperture where men can relive the experience of history though a symbolic process thus assimilating it intellectually and hopefully to transcend pain and celebrate life.

Tirzo Martha

When the Africans got to the island of Curaçao they saw how the landlords treated their cattle. Their first remark was if these people could treat their food like this, then their treatment of us will surely be worse. From that moment on the Africans knew that their only way to freedom was through the dead. The landlords sucked all the energy, life and blood out of the slaves – they became zombies. Their right to exist was taken away from them. In their spiritual world they created a kind of shrine where they asked their God and even the landlord to kill them as soon as possible so they could get their freedom and embark on a spiritual journey back to their motherland: Africa.

Yubi Kirindongo
Curaçao

It is very significant that Kirindongo has used material (car-tires) that has a certain flexibility. He never used this material before. He was struck by its durability, its imperishability. He wanted to transform this non-destructible waste into something new, something more friendly.

Even for the "Tree of chastisement" at Landhuis Knip the material is less hard than usual.

During the Watamula workshop Kirindongo has replaced the bell of Landhuis Knip, hoping it would be the anouncement of a revolution in the history of arts at Curaçao, the beginning of the new era. The modern manager of Knip has created space for that new development. For the exhibition a red bell was hung in the entrance of Landhuis Bloemhof.
The name of Landhuis Bloemhof (= flowergarden) brought even more "gentleness" in the work of Kirindongo when he created the straw-man: the Kunuku (Country) that comes to town. Furthermore he planted white flowers (car-tires) in the grass. The loving couple (car-tires) fits in.

October 2000

Verde, que te quiero verde
Green, I want you green
By Ariadne Faries

The process of creation is more important then creation itself.
Process of process of process of...

process of ... receptivity
Listening .. to the birds, rabbits, wind and leaves, becoming a passage,
passive and feminine. Cleaning the mondi (cleaning myself), taking away
everything which is not green. Green= color of hope and adventure

process of ... experiencing (not an experience to file away)
creating inner space to hear nature whisper. The feeling of wonder
itself, a gentle touch of connectedness with the surroundings. Green
stones so close to me, calling me again and again... cleaning, watering,
loving ...

process of ... creativity
an attitude, an inner approach making me grow, becoming spiritual,
creative and divine. Abandoning myself to grow closer to the Creator,
technique is just a tool.

process of ... integration
Communication between receptivity, experiencing and creativity melting
into a literature myth. A woman not wanting to say goodbye to her dead
husband decides to live near the grave (green stones). In the beginning
she has pain and cries a lot. With all the tears green moss starts to
grow on the stones. As the color gets greener the pains gets less. At
the end she finds herself, so peace in the middle of nature. Integration
with nature - integration with oneself.

Installation
- creating dimensions by hanging green frames in the trees. Also as the
frames of the perfect natural paintings.
-creating intimacy with familiar furniture and decorations.
-game of natural and candle light
-design paths of tiny green leaves, random contrasts of purple and pink
flowers with green
-several green seats in the surroundings for better and relaxed view

Lourdes Penaranda
Venezuela.

Título:
LIMITACION NAN
LIMITS
LIMITES

Técnica Mixta
Materiales: Knepa Chiki: cáctus, piedras, 7 barriles.
Museo: imágenes, bolsas de plástico, arena, agua, piedras, cáctus, desechos.

Concepto
Límites establecidos por la naturaleza. El agua como límite.
Límites impuestos por la necesidad de establecer diferencias. Piedras y
cáctus como límites de propiedades.
Límites inconcientes, incontenibles y abrasivos, que constantemente aclaman la urbanización de la naturaleza. Desechos que los seres humanos dejan a su paso.

Nelson González
Venezuela.

Aserca

Siento lo que siento,
Y lo que siento, lo siento, con lengueje, acompañado y
soporte expresivo
Mejor así

He tenido una gran escuela aserca del trabajo hunamo y vivencial, tanto
para la subsistencia en un plano mental espiritual y conceptual, me he
sentido blanco, negro y hasta poli racial, de distintas religiones y
doctrinas que solo me han llevado a refirmarme como ser pensante y buscar mi cultura como herramienta de explotación estética.

He estado muy ligado a este proyecto desde un trás telón, hasta llegar a ser una pieza más de este ajedrez donde solo el la espiritualidad y las ganas de espresar tiene el poder para mover estas piezas, el Taller de Artistas Internacional WATAMULA creo no solo ha sido un taller de vivencia y creación, sino, que ha logrado un espacio intimo de confrontación y auto conocimiento,

Del Trabajo
Puedo decir que que me he movido en las esferas más inenexploradas, una confrontación directa con el ser humano, su idioma, sus ideológia, sus miedos, sus victorias, sus huecos, su consolidación, su derroche, su
emoción, su energia, sus colera, sus egos, sus pánicos, su naturalidad;
interna y externa, que se muestra en la creación cotidiana, desde el
desayuno, hasta la playa pasando y viendo como el sol fuerte gira alrededor de los cuerpos que sudan·

De mi Trabajo
Parto del descanso y el dolor; lo que significa, su representación, desde
el inicio hasta lo que coresponde, es como el reinicio de la fuerza que
mueve traduce y codifica individualmente las experiencias y los lenguajes
expresivos.

Concepto
Dolor y Descanso.

Descripcion
Son tre culos a la orilla de la playa, con una alfombra de corales y la
construcción del culo mismo es de arena blanca, el ano es una foto digital de Watamula.

Partiendo de la forma y lo que lo hace particular, pues, respira con el
choque de las olas del mar. y un culo por lo del descanso, al sentarce el
culo es primer contacto para el descanso.

Wilson Diaz Polanco,
Columbia

Titulo del trabajo : Draagmoeder

Tecnica : Fotografía (registro de performance) objeto y semillas

Descripción de performance:
-Recolecté semillas en colombia de esta planta de la familia de las
Eritroxilaceas
-Tragé las semillas el día de mi viaje a Curazao(23 de septiembre).12 am
Cali ö 11 pm Curazao.
- Defequé las semillas en una huerta abandonada en Curazao y las planté
-Riego las plantas.

Concepto: En Colombia en este momento, se esta realizando el "Plan Colombia" (Los Gobiernos de USA y Colombia, llegaron a un acuerdo que consiste en ayudas financieras y tecnologicas para principalmente erradicar la producción de drogas) dentro del "plan Colombia" los Estados Unidos impusieron una solución que desgraciadamente el presidente colombiano no descartó sino que acepto, la misma consiste en la erradicación de cultivos ilicitos por medio de la fumigación con el hongo Fusarium Oxisporum f.s.p Eritroxyli , este hongo esta clasificado como un arma biologica y se le llama "la amenaza verde" , nunca ha sido probado fuera del laboratorio y se sabe que acabaría con muchas especies de plantas entre ellas el maiz, el algodon etc. en este momento algunos grupos ecologistas se pronuncian en contra de esta "solución " .

Mi proyecto se inserta en esta discusión que se da en mi pais en este
momento para tomar una posición con respecto al problema , que traspasa las fronteras y como puedo sentir se conecta directamente con problemas actuales que veo reflejados en el Caribe y el mundo.

Wilfredo Prieto
Cuba

P r o y e c t o:
Titulo: -----------
Tecnica: Medios Reales, Plantas de Coco y Pipas de Basura.
Medidas: Variables ( 5 módulos)

Concepto: Presentar lo símbolico como pretexto, e interrelacionarlo con la visualidad. Ir a la literalidad de la imágen caribeña a través de la literalidad del discurso.

Experiencia: Creo que un taller de tal embergadura, es más que una vivencia cultural, es una retroalimentación. Es una escuela de escuelas, es un sitio de confluencia de artistas de diferetes circuitos que de pronto se vuelven uno solo, una relación que se proyecta desde el comartir una beer hasta cualquier tipo de conceptualización teórica o estética.

Tony Monsanto

This poem by Tony was recited by him at the celebration at the night of
the "open house" on 7th of October at his art work on the site:

El barco del a muerte
Es el barco del terror
Es el barco del horror
Es el barco de sufrir
Es el barco de los cadáveres
Es el barco de la destrucción
Es el dolor de los niños
Es el dolor de los chicos
Es el dolor de las chicas
Es el dolor de los padres
Es el horror de los pueblos
Es el terror de la humanidad
Es el terror de los barcos
Es el horror de las armas
Es el terror de las guerras
Es el horror de la paz
Es el terror del mar
Es el horror de la selva
Es el dolor de los pobres
Es el terror de los ricos
Es el horror de la historia
Es el dolor de la memoria
Es mi barco, es mi dolor, es mi horror,
es mi terror, es el barco de la muerte
es el barco BROOKS

Statement:

"Actualization of our memory"
The idea for my site-specific installation for the "Watamula" workshop
was already developed when I visited the Landhuis Knip on the occasion of a tour over the island organized by the local historical archive in memory
of Tula and the slave rebellion of 1795 in august of this year. On august
17th, the Curaçao population remembers the events that took place more
than 200 years ago and this year a booklet by Charles do Rego about the
historical facts was published as a hommage to the memory of the slave
rebellion and the subsequent death penalties and brutal slaughtering of
26 rebel slaves by the dutch colonial administration.
The graphic configuration of the infamous slave boat "Brooks" in this
book, showing the schematic illustration of the transported Africans, stacked like animals, who consequently were to be sold as slaves, served as a foundation for my project on the site at plantation Knip. I made the
slave boat with only natural material found in the vicinity. The mast of the
boat in the middle of the construction reaches into the branches of the
tamarind tree and symbolizes a gallow where the slave rebels were tortured, lynched and murdered. Scattered bones and broken tombstones in the hull are a reminder of the horrifying acts committed in the name of christianity by Europeans who brought our ancestors to this continent: America.

Tony Monsanto, WATAMULA, Curaçao, october 2000

Richard Bolai
Trinidad

Ryan Oduber
Aruba

My work takes place in the moment. A moment of anger or love, finding itÕs own way into the landscape. Performances giving space and time the real time. Sounds of the Dutch Caribbean. Ode to a bird. Exploration of the deep secret tunnels of the dreamscapes of the ‘Landhuis Kenepa’.

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