Making Histories, 2023

Making Histories is an installation commissioned by Princessehof National Ceramics Museum in the Netherlands. I had the opportunity to work with the historical collection of the Museum. I selected objects, mostly from the ‘global South’, made by unknown artists, that were in the museum depot and had not been seen by museum goers. These objects were interspaced with objects made by me carrying my ‘mark’ and by three little ceramic figurines I inherited as part of the the family story.

When my grandfather was a young newly-wed man, with the responsibility of a growing family in addition to his large brood of brothers and sisters, he, a theoretical physicist had to come up with ideas for businesses to supplement his primary income. One of these ideas was to buy kitschy slip cast bone-china ‘toys’ imported from Japan, from a merchant in Calcutta, and bring them to Baroda on the train and sell them. These Japanese toys had Indian content – images of hindu gods.

Sea faring gods, looking for homes in middle-class India.

As a story teller, I always knew that these figurines were not mine only for safekeeping. I am also a keeper of their stories. And I want to discover them, share them.

In working with the collections of the Princessehof I was able to work with an existing collection, intervene in a historical collection of objects. I was able to move across time and space, building new narratives. It was also the possibility of initiating dialogue between these groups of objects that would never have met otherwise. To tell collective stories, generate new mythologies. Mythologies of movement, of value, heritage, provenance displacement and inheritance.

My inheritance made another journey to the Netherlands.

Museum vitrine, historical objects, family heirlooms. Me.

I make three new objects as part of installation in the vitrine.
2 of them are based on pot forms across world traditions. Round bottoms. Holders of grain, holders of stories. Nourishment.

For a year these objects share space with invaluable objects from across time and from across the world. Could they change each other? Leave palimpsests of their temporary coming together on each other? What new stories will they tell?

Mark Makers:

Andre Zandstra

Her Comis

Ilse Agtersmit

Ilse Stap

Neha Kudchadkar

Paulien Ploeger

Rahul Rao

Wendy Gers

Photo Credits : Ruben van Vliet for the Princessehof National Museum of Ceramics