Lakisha Apostel

This ongoing ceramic series accompanies rituals in exploring the meaning of belonging to autobiographical and collective sites and ways of connecting to them.

Karga mi (Carry Me) is a ongoing performance conducted by two Curaçaoan performers who carry a speck of salt in a ceramic piece between them through the capital of Curaçao, Willemstad. This work is inspired by Bulabanda, a ritual in which uprooted slaves on Curaçao believed that if they didn't consume salt, they could lift off and fly back to their homeland. Using this story as an entry point, I highlight that Curaçao's current society is the result of ancestors who couldn't make the journey back home. Through this poetic approach, I emphasise to the everyday public that we are in direct connection to our past.

Un Enkuentro di Lombrishi (An Encounter Between Navels) is an ongoing series of performances where soil from a Curaçaoan yard is placed in a ceramic vessel, and water fetched from Watamula, Curaçao’s "navel," is blown through the vessel back into the bodily entity of Watamula. Through this ritual, a part of the uprooted descendant is reconnected with a part of their homeland.

Un Enkuentro di Lombrishi (An Encounter Between Navels) is a ritual performed by my mother, sister, and me. During the performance, water from Watamula is poured over our bodies, landing in the autobiographical site of my grandmother's yard. Here, I attempt to create a link between two places that have never met: one representing the collective navel, and the other representing my personal autobiographical navel.

The soil is the beginning, the mother and the belly. Displacement is a state that the body is in. In this state the body is lost, not bound to anything, a wanderer in a constant state of unwilling errantry. We Shared a Belly is rooted in these parallel assertions. The clay tools act as incisions in the soil so that the body can be reintroduced to the belly. This artistic methodology aims to address the topic of uprootedness, a subject that deeply resonates with me as a person from Curaçao grappling with the remnants of a displaced ancestry. I use performance to enact a ritual towards belonging, where the performers insert themselves back into the soil with curiosity and care, morphing with it, taking their time with it, playing with it and caressing all that is the belly. I aim for this ritual to give language to the unspoken history of displacement in Curaçao, and create a link between body, place and the feeling of uprootedness that hasn’t existed before. This embodied ritual begins to heal the historic rapture and reach into that void.

The term ‘secular’ refers to rituals that are non-religious in nature. In this slow-paced performance, the discomfort arising from bodily displacement becomes the focus of a secular ritual being unpacked. Modular wooden tools, designed to require constant adjustment, compel the performer to engage with their physical presence within the tools and their surrounding space. The performers move aimlessly from one tool to the next in an ongoing search for comfort and belonging. These tools are intentionally crafted to evoke physical discomfort, mirroring the everyday struggles and unease experienced by displaced individuals.

The term ‘secular’ refers to rituals that are non-religious in nature. In this slow-paced performance, the discomfort arising from bodily displacement becomes the focus of a secular ritual being unpacked. Modular wooden tools, designed to require constant adjustment, compel the performer to engage with their physical presence within the tools and their surrounding space. The performers move aimlessly from one tool to the next in an ongoing search for comfort and belonging. These tools are intentionally crafted to evoke physical discomfort, mirroring the everyday struggles and unease experienced by displaced individuals.