Peter Stuyvesant’s Ghost

sound piece by artist Saskia Janssen for exhibition in public space, East Village, New York, 2006, picture 1

sound piece by artist Saskia Janssen for exhibition in public space, East Village, New York, picture 2

Peter Stuyvesant’s Ghost 

Peter Stuyvesant’s Ghost is a site specific project on the Dutch colonial past in Manhattan. The project took place in the public space of the East Village, NYC, nov.2006. For this project, Janssen recorded a CD with two visitors at the Blaka Watra Shelter in Amsterdam.
Songs, Texts and Rhythms performed by Ebby Addo and Totty Telgt.
(Audio CD, 23 min. and printed matter 24 x 42 cm in sleeve and sound on telecom server.)Edition : 150

Blaka Watra is an Amsterdam homeless and hard drug user shelter for people of Surinamese –African origin. Most of its clients arrived in Amsterdam after the independence of former Dutch colony Surinam in 1977. Suffering from having been uprooted and without much hope for the future, they ended up as drug users on the streets of Amsterdam. It’s likely that many of their ancestors were slaves. Many of Blaka Watra’s Surinamese clients have old Dutch family names. Peter Stuyvesant was the largest private slave owner in New Amsterdam. He owned 40 slaves. Some of these slaves also carried Dutch names. The songs on the CD are a collection performed by two of Blaka Watra’s clients, Ebby Addo and Totty Telgt. Three songs are based on historical slave songs, one is a recitation of the names of the first African landowners in New Amsterdam, and some are improvised around historical situations relating to African-Dutch slavery or are drawn from aspects of Addo’s and Telgt’s lives.

sound piece by artist Saskia Janssen for exhibition in public space, East Village, New York, picture 3

sound piece by artist Saskia Janssen for exhibition in public space, East Village, New York, picture 4

sound piece by artist Saskia Janssen for exhibition in public space, East Village, New York, picture 5

Recording with Ebby and Totty, Blaka Watra shelter, Amsterdam 26-29 oct. 2006.

sound piece by artist Saskia Janssen for exhibition in public space, East Village, New York, picture 6

8 recordings by Ebby and Totty on a CD plus lyrics and drawings on a folded print.

sound piece by artist Saskia Janssen for exhibition in public space, East Village, New York, picture 7

 

sound piece by artist Saskia Janssen for exhibition in public space, East Village, New York, picture 8

 

 

Saskia Janssen radio interview, East Village, New York, 2006

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Saskia Janssen, book Blaka Watra Spiders, published by Roma Publications, 2009