AFRO Magazine launches Remember Statia edition on Sunday October 13

AMSTERDAM -- On Sunday October 13, Afrocentric media platform AFRO Magazine will launch a special print edition with articles by people from the Caribbean island of St. Eustatius, relating to the island’s slavery past. The event that will take place at the AFRO Magazine offices in the city of Weesp in North Holland, will also feature the unveiling of artwork created by artist Fre Calmes from the stories that are published in the magazine.

The stories, the artwork and the magazine all form part of the heritage project Remember Statia project, that the St. Eustatius Burial Ground Alliance carried out in 2023 and 2024 together with Netherlands -based foundation Bigi Bon - the parent foundation of AFRO Magazine.

The Remember Statia project is a follow-up to a similar project named Memre (Remembrance), with which the Bigi Bon Foundation in 2021 and 2022 delved into the slavery archives with Afro-Surinamers in the Netherlands for stories from their past. AFRO Magazine also produced a magazine from that project: The Memre Edition.

Bigi Bon foundation received subsidy for Remember Statia in 2023 from the slavery abolition commemoration funds managed by the Mondriaan Fund. The foundation partnered with the St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance, which had at that time opposed disrespectful research by European archaeologists on 18th century African burial grounds that had been found on the island.

The Remember Statia project spanned 2023 and 2024; about 15 people had registered to take part, mostly from St. Eustatius, but also people living in the Netherlands, St. Maarten and Curacao, one from the US and even one all the way from Australia, who had traced her ancestry to the island.

First there was a training in St. Eustatius in archival research by Martine Zoeteman and Jacqueline Verkleij of the Center for Family History (CBG) and then training by AFRO Magazine founder/editor-in-chief Marvin Hokstam in writing the stories that the participants had found in the archives about their past. Tips on how to tell those stories most effectively, but also on how colonized language can be, and how to deal with that through language decolonization.

After that, Amsterdam-based artist Fre Calmes - originally from Haiti - also went to St. Eustatius, where he stayed for a month as 'artist in residence'.

All this resulted in about 20 articles and about 12 paintings, which AFRO Magazine combined in its new print magazine. The “Remember Statia Edition” is coming off print on Wednesday, October 9. A fascinating publication of 64 pages chock full of untold personal stories, some of which Fre Calmes expressed in the beautiful works of art. They are scattered throughout the magazine. The front page of the magazine is one of them.

It is the first time in just over a year that AFRO Magazine is producing a print magazine again, the first time in English and the first time with articles by mainly non-professional writers. It is also the first time that such a project has taken place in the Dutch Caribbean. A community project like no other.

The Remember Statia project will conclude on Sunday at 3 p.m., in the office of AFRO Magazine/Bigi Bon/Broos Institute at Stationsweg 28 in Weesp. The event is open to anyone who is interested.

Kenneth Cuvalay, chairman of the St. Eustatius Burial Ground Alliance, will be on hand to give a speech about the project and artist Fre Calmes will provide a sneak preview with four copies of the 12 paintings that he produced during his stay in St. Eustatius. The entire collection will be on display in a more extensive exhibition at a later date.

The magazine will be for sale on site and art-loving attendees can also order Fre Calmes' paintings.

The magazine can also be ordered from Wednesday 13 October via the QR code below. It costs 7 euros plus shipping costs. Please note: the magazine will only be mailed after the launch on Sunday.

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