Michelle Piergoelam. Across the Water

How do you remember a story that was never written down? How do you talk about a past that is not kept in archives but lives on in songs, symbols, and myths? These are precisely the questions that Dutch artist Michelle Piergoelam explores in Across the Water. Working with photographic works, textiles, and installation elements, she presents a complex web of family tradition, colonial history, and cultural heritage, inviting visitors to accompany her on a poetic search for traces of the past and the present.
This long-term project focuses on the largely invisible history of the Surinamese diaspora in the Netherlands that her family belongs to: “For a long time, despite my roots, I knew very little about the culture of my ancestors.” This void motivated her need to tell stories from a subjective, personal perspective beyond official historiography. Piergoelam interweaves myths, dreams, and memories to create new visual narratives. She examines songs that were sung, knowledge about plants that was passed on from generation to generation, and the bonds within African Surinamese culture. Key images include the spider figure Anansi, symbolizing resistance and trickery, and Angisa, an intricately folded headscarf whose forms transport secret messages. Nature also plays a key role; it is the place of resistance in Across the Water, a silent witness of colonial history and a resonance chamber for collective memory.