Onias Landveld

Kunu

18 February 2023 - 07 May 2023

In Kunu, Onias Landveld playfully yet insistently confronts the viewer with choices and patterns that are connected to personal histories. Landveld (Paramaribo, 1985) fled the Surinamese civil war in 1989, together with his family. While he returned to Suriname three years later, he has been living and working in Tilburg since 1998.

As a poet, spoken-word artist, performer and theatre-maker, Landveld can rightfully be called a multidisciplinary storyteller who presents his narratives to an audience in a varying array of forms. While these stories have their origin in the African diaspora, they are ultimately relevant to everyone.

Landveld has adapted his theatre performance Kunu into a video installation especially for De Pont. The title means ‘curse’ in the language of the Afro-Surinamese Winti culture. In Kunu, that curse is embodied in the recurring pain and fear of one’s parents and ancestors, passed down from generation to generation. This trauma is a curse people are often unaware of carrying and it can cause permanent harm – unless they manage to break the vicious cycle.

Here, Landveld has worked with animators and composers to convey his story in seven distinct parts. These ‘chapters’ symbolise the artist’s own journey. To observe it is to be moved by the rhythm of his poetry and carried by the strength of his voice – to find oneself caught up in his search for truth and liberation. Yet those who enter the installation are confronted with their own identity as well. The ill-tempered and restless god Elegua (who is played by Landveld himself and appears on eight different screens in the installation) ensures that self-reflection cannot be escaped. He guides the viewer down the unfamiliar paths we each must take at times in order to become aware of our own kunu.

The video installation is only in Dutch, without subtitles.