A new family story has taken center stage in the Tschumi Pavilion on Hereplein. Stadjer Charles Goudsmit (1954) tells about his family, a history that starts in Ghana and ends in the Netherlands via Indonesia.
“My family has always been on the road, looking for a safe place, and that search has usually not been voluntary. Again and again that question: how can I create a place for myself and for my loved ones? That does something to someone when you deprive them of their sense of home.”
Charles himself came to the Netherlands from Indonesia in 1965: “I was ten years old then. My father had cancer and was seriously ill; from Schiphol we went straight to the hospital, where he died three weeks later. From that moment on, my mother was all alone, with seven children.”
In 1990 he returned to Indonesia to find out his family history: "That's when I first heard the whole story, about how it all went."
City poet Myron Hamming wrote a poem inspired by this story; the light artwork by Lambert Kamps shows meaningful words from this from sunset. A QR code at the artwork leads visitors to an audio fragment in which the city poet recites his poem and to the family story of the Goudsmit family.
This winter Kunstpunt Groningen presents a special version of the installation DichtLicht by Lambert Kamps in the glass pavilion on Hereplein. DichtLicht op het verleden shares personal stories of Groningers about the impact of the slavery past in their (family) lives. The poems alternate every two weeks. Previously, the stories of the Surinamese Rellum family and the Moluccan family history of Stefan Alfons were central. We started the series with a prologue based on Myron Hamming's own family story.
DichtLicht by artist Lambert Kamps (1974) is an installation that “writes” words with lighting tubes. The lamps slowly slide in and out of closed tubes. Words from Myron Hamming's poems are depicted in this way. Lambert Kamps is an artist and designer in Groningen. His work is located at the interface of art, architecture and design.
DichtLicht op het verleden is the first public expression of a preliminary investigation into how visual art can make the shared history of our slavery past visible in public space. The research focuses specifically on a monument yet to be erected to commemorate Groningen's Trans-Atlantic and Asian slavery past, in a meaningful place in public space. Kunstpunt is carrying out this research on behalf of the Municipality of Groningen and in collaboration with the Noaberschap Foundation and other organizations and individuals involved. Kunstpunt and Lambert Kamps have developed the art project DichtLicht op het verleden to contribute to the collective awareness of this subject.
The story of the Goudsmit family is central to the Tschumi Pavilion from 17 February to 3 March.