I win the Jacques de Leeuw Award 2022?
The Jacques de Leeuw Award offers opportunities to develop my vision through further study. The theme Otherness, which I want to explore even further, is not only topical but also vast. At this point, I’ve chosen a small part within the theme to start the journey how we all can have a different look at today’s global pop culture.
What exactly do I want to do? As a starting point, if I win, I will look at two red threads in my life – Japanese (pop) culture and hiphop – up close. The weird thing is that Japanese art pop culture and hip-hop flirt with each other. They inspire each other and they take elements from each other and create hybrid versions of each other’s art forms. To find out more, I’ve talked to Caroline Lassche: Lecturer at Fontys Hogeschool voor de Kunsten, Japanologist and art historian specializing in Japanese art.
Hiphop has its roots in the Caribbean (one of the founders DJ Kool Herc has Jamaican parents). To keep it a bit ‘closer to home’ for me, I want to see if two different islands, which are miles apart, Japan and Curaçao, have a cultural similarity?
Yes, there is. Curaçao and Japan, as insular cultures, have the same attitude towards second-hand clothing. Within the current context of sustainable fashion, rediscovering of cultural roots, lost past and – here it is again – hiphop, this is a research that would give me as a maker and educator a lot of insight into cultural identities, developments in rediscovering ancestral history and youth culture. For this I would go on a study trip to Japan (and Curaçao) to investigate this up-close at institutes and on the streets.