2025-06-11 | Richard Kofi: designed a tapestry for Threads of our Dutch Slavery Past: Gelderland

Across the Netherlands, residents are working together on a project Threads of our Dutch slavery past (Draden van ons Nederlandse slavernijverleden) - tapestries that depict the regional history of the colonial slavery past. Our fellow Richard Kofi has been selected to design the tapestry for his home province, Gelderland. For the coming months, volunteers are bringing it to life, using techniques like embroidery, quilting, punching, and tufting. These are images from his presentation at the Valkhof Museum, where I had the honor of sharing the story behind Threads of our Dutch Slavery Past: Gelderland.

'In my tapestry design, water carries many stories: from Anna van Vossenburg’s forced journey from Suriname to Arnhem, Quaco’s stolen childhood, to the echoes of the Belanda Hitam - Ghanaian captives who were forced to work for the Dutch colonial army in Indonesia, the KNIL. Around these stories, I created my own fairytale, inspired by Sun Ra’s worldview, cool Parliament-Funkadelic’s album covers, and the underwater mythology of the Detroit techno collective Drexciya. Giant waves swallow the mansions that were made with slavery money. The water holds the pain of the past, but it also represents our power to be reborn and to reweave these histories.'

Want to contribute? Find the times and locations here.

In the period 2024-2026, the Villa Maecenatis foundation will realize a monumental, narrative tapestry in every province of the Netherlands. In this, the provincial history in relation to the slavery past is depicted in an artistic way. Local historical research always provides the building blocks for this.

Artists have already created tapestries for provinces: Munir de Vries for Utrecht, Marcos Kueh for South Holland, Amber Hyacinth for Overijssel, and Hedy Tjin for Groningen.

Photo: by Henck Pengel during during the Kunst Cafe by Suus te Braak.