Untitled (2022)
by Mikki Stelder
This work was part of a collaboration initiated by artist and curator Sithabile Mlotshwa and Rudy Chotoe aka di Damsko.
It was included in Sithabile Mlotshwa’s exhibition 6 - 15 July 2022 at Arti et Amicitiae (Rokin 1121012 LB Amsterdam)
The exhibition Surinamensium part 1 formed the starting point and reflection on the gaze of Maria Sibylla Merian, a German-born naturalist and scientific illustrator whom in 1699, traveled to Dutch Suriname to study and record the tropical insects native to the region, when it was a plantation colony utilising slavery for sugar cultivation. In 1705, she published Metamorphosis insectorum Surinamensium. Merian’s Metamorphosis has been credited with influencing a range of naturalist illustrators. Because of her careful observations and documentation of the metamorphosis of the butterfly, Merian is considered to be among the more significant contributors to the field of entomology by David Attenborough.
The project was situated in the larger context of Sithabile Mlotshwa’s project: In Search of Ubuntu – Legacies of Imperial Projects, re-Remembering & re-Thinking “Empire” in relation to “Civilisation” the West and the Rest.
