Kevin Osepa

FOTODOK x BredaPhoto

With Grounding – Stories of Migration, FOTODOK ✕ BredaPhoto Festival present works by seven artists that tell stories of first generation migration – those who came to the Netherlands by choice or by circumstance. These works reflect processes of diasporic homemaking and identity formation: both ever-evolving pursuits for the uprooted. Split into parts, or caught between past and present, the urge to define a new sense of home – and a new sense of self – becomes stronger than ever.

Participating artists: Giya Makondo-Wills, Hanna Hrabarska, Kevin Osepa, Marwan Magroun, Nael Quraishi, Sebastian Koudijzer & Tyler Koudijzer, Thana Faroq

Curated by Daria Tuminas

In Entre Dòmi i Sawaka (Between Dòmi and Sawaka) Kevin Osepa searches for the ties that connect him to a place that has shaped him: Domi, a neighbourhood in Willemstad, Curaçao. At 12 am, a hard light lays contrast on every detail, and the national anthem – Himno di Kòrsou – plays on the radio. It’s a time when spirits manifest; a vulnerable hour when the air is loaded with transformation, when everything is possible, and when the artist starts his walks.

Osepa invites his family members – his father, aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces – to join him, creating images together. This collaborative process sees Osepa listen carefully to oral histories as told by his relatives – local or familial legends, beliefs and stories of encounters with the spiritual world. Both sounds and narratives become starting points for his work to emerge. Images become new myths built on collectively revisited words, visions, places and senses.

Just as Osepa’s aunt once saw the light coming down in a living room – first spinning, then flying away – the viewer catches sight of something similarly ungraspable: the invisible connections between everything that exists, filled with spirit, shared words and moments in time.