The artist collective Family Connection presents a group installation that reflects on slave revolts, plantations escapes and 20th century labour struggles in the Caribbean. The group is looking in particular at these struggles on islands that share Dutch occupation and colonization. The groups work proposes that socialist and marxist inspired labour uprisings in the 20th century in the region are echoes of earlier work stoppages by the enslaved on colonial plantations. The title of the installation ‘Marronage’ refers to the practice of escaping slavery and establishing new communities outside of the oppressive European colonial systems. Revolts, and the sabotage of plantation equipment, are seen by some critical thinkers as the first instances of labour fights and refusal to continue disfiguring the lived in environment. Maroon communities founded after fleeing slavery insisted on developing a non-extractive relation to nature. The installation proposes overlapping histories of anti-capitalist organizing, ecological solidarity and living defiantly in the face of continuous colonial terror.

Bio:
Family Connection was founded in 2005 by the artists Glenda and Gala Martinus, two sisters from Curaçao. For each presentation the group varies in which of the artist of participating artists of the various branches of the Martinus family. For this exhibition the group consists of Glenda Martinus, Rudsel Martinus, Jörgen Gario and Quinsy Gario. The group has worked together to present an show consisting of an installation, paintings, an audiowork, a videowork, a projection work.

The group has exhibited previously in Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven, Netherlands), CASCO (Utrecht, Netherlands), Riga Art Space (Riga, Latvia) and Curaçao. Work by the collection is now also collected as part of the National Heritage Collection of the Netherlands.