Lisandro Suriel (St. Martin)
Project Statement: As a child of the diaspora, no formal institution ever introduced the idea that our history and identity might extend beyond being a descendent of slavery. Ghost Island, seeks to build an epistemological framework and metaphor with which to document and process the dynamic and unseen influences of Caribbean identity; the Black imagination. By visually deconstructing New World-imagination, Ghost Island seeks to uncouple the Black and/or Caribbean narrative from the colonial sphere. Ghost Island also stands for my own insular background in Saint Martin, and connotes the New World-condition of complex overlapping histories and immateriality. I propose that the imaginative lens is arguably the best with which to view how folkloric figures act as an agent in history and animate cultural memory.
Bio: Lisandro Suriel earned his Bachelor’s degree in Photography at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and received his Master’s of Art by research in Artistic Research at the University of Amsterdam. His on-going project Ghost Island employs Black imagination in order to generate linkages to a forgotten past and decolonial identity. Ghost Island also stands for Suriel’s insular background in Saint Martin, and connotes the Caribbean condition of complex overlapping histories. Lisandro proposes that the imaginative lens is arguably the best with which to view how folkloric figures act as an agent in history and animate cultural memory.