We are pleased to welcome a new Thami Mnyele Residency Award winner Kim Darbouze! Kim Darbouze was selected in collaboration with dr Esther Captain, a senior researcher and staff member at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV) in Leiden, the Netherlands.

Kim is a psycho-social researcher presently working with the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies focused on colonialism, the afterlives of slavery and collective healing. Kim ties in the artistic research and practice that is as yet a growing path in the academic and research field. Through these mergers she also challenges the dominant productions of knowledge and validity that persist in academic institutions.

Kim weaves the intentional frays, tears, and separation that continue to feed colonialism, using weaving as a praxis and metaphor to further a material analysis that shows the ever-connected relations of ecological, geopolitical, and socially embodied colonial ties that impact all elements of our collective existence. Like atmospheric pressure that is everywhere and nowhere at the same time, colonialism is not fixed to a temporal past but is present in matters that we can't keep running away from.

The weaving in the work reveals and clarifies the intentionality of the separated and blurred globally enmeshed elements of colonialism. The material links encourage and show the queer realities of our shared existence. From the indigenous knowledges into the technological shifts, all these elements are deeply connected. Weaving entails suturing the ideally radical futures of collective healing. Before we can suture and heal, we must persistantly continue to imagine these futures.

During her residency in Thami Mnyele Foundation, Kim will continue to work on her research for KITLV, and will focus on the material research and artistic practice.

KITLV