Haitian artist Frederick Calmes to St. Eustatius

Frederick Calmes, a young Haitian painter, sculptor, and digital artist residing in the Netherlands, has been “Artist in Residence” on St. Eustatius for the past four weeks.

The St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance (in short “the Alliance”) invited Calmes to create several digital artworks for the family heritage project "Remember Statia: Tracing Our Origins," which received funding from the Mondriaan foundation. Calmes’ work focuses on storytelling and spirituality, and that is precisely the core topic of what the family heritage project entails.

Spiritual connection to our Ancestors

Kenneth Cuvalay, president of the Alliance: “Our project originates in the archaeological excavations of 69 of our ancestors from the Golden Rock plantation who were dug up from their graves without consent of the comunity. Much of our work consists of activism, meetings, and talking, but it is equally important to also process on a spiritual level what has happened to our ancestors. Art is a powerful way to do this and connect your soul and the spirit of the community on a whole new level.”

Calmes proved to be the perfect candidate for the “Artist in Residence" program. The stories the participants in the project wrote are very much stories of migration. Migration is in the Caribbean's DNA, and the exceptional stories written by the participants prove that St. Eustatius is no exception. On the contrary. Frederick's life serves as a symbol of migration, and the Caribbean people have always found inspiration in Haiti's successful conquest of the colonial powers.

A dream come true

Wednesday, September 4, Calmes will travel back to Amsterdam. As he reflects back on the past few weeks:

The project has been a dream come true for me. Everything I do as an artist is in honor of our Afrikan ancestors, so this project is deeply meaningful. Although I didn’t know much about the history of St. Eustatius before, visiting the island was an experience beyond words. Thank you St. Eustatius.”

The Alliance anticipates publishing the collected stories of the project along with the artwork in November 2024, in a special Afro Magazine Statia edition.

About the project

"Remember Statia: Tracing Our Origins" aims to raise awareness about the importance of preserving Afrikan cultural heritage on St. Eustatius. In addition, the heroes of slavery—many of whom are buried on the former Golden Rock plantation—are to be rescued from oblivion.

The project is a follow-up of the Memre project, which was initiated by the Bigi Bon foundation and gathered the ancestral stories of the Afro-Surinamese community in the Netherlands. Marvin Hokstam, a writer and educator, led both projects. He will continue his quest to discover and record stories from the Afrikan (diaspora) community, thus rewriting the narrative for the future.

About the St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance (SE-ABG Alliance)

The SE-ABG Alliance came about as a result of the protests against the excavations on the 18th-century burial ground of enslaved Afrikans Golden Rock that were started by a team of international archaeologists in June 2021 in St. Eustatius (see https://www.change.org/LeaveOurAncestorsInPeace). The protests were initially led by the political party Ubuntu Connected Front Caribbean. Located in St. Eustatius and with allies around the world, the St. Eustatius Afrikan Burial Ground Alliance broadened the scope of the struggle focusing on other Afrikan burial grounds in St. Eustatius such as the Afrikan Burial Ground Godet Plantation St. Eustatius (Godet/Fort Amsterdam). One of the aims is to further broaden the scope of our struggle to the Pan-Afrikanist level, connecting with and working with Afrikan-centered organizations and movements that are also fighting for the preservation of our Ancestors’ endangered Afrikan burial grounds around the world and taking control of our narrative that has been distorted.