“The OAZO AIR experience was incredible and exceeded my expectations. In fact I’m currently researching other opportunities that would allow me to come back to the Netherlands for further study. This experience has prepared me well for the project that I’m embarking upon and I look forward to pursuing all of the contacts that I made while there with individuals including artists – Remy Jungerman, Patricia Kaersenhout, Charl Landvreugd, Iris Kensmill, Nardo Brudet and art historians/curators Dr. Adi Martis and Rob Perrée.”
Shantrelle P. Lewis is an independent curator, a 2014 United Nations Programme for People of African Descent Fellow and 2012-13 Andy Warhol Curatorial Fellow. Lewis received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in African American Studies from Howard and Temple Universities respectively. Her extensive travels to places throughout Africa, Europe, the United States, the Caribbean and South America have allowed Lewis firsthand access to the manifestation of African Diasporan aesthetic phenomena. Lewis has demonstrated a commitment to researching, documenting and preserving African Diasporan culture. As a curator she uses the exhibition format to respond critically to socio-political and cosmological phenomena through an African-centred lens.
During her residency Lewis presented an abbreviated installation of
Dandy Lion: Articulating a Re(de)fined Black Masculine Identity at the studio. She was one of the international guest speakers at the Annual Black Magic Woman Festival. Lewis conducted several studio visits and engaged in research about the Dutch Caribbean Diaspora in preparation for the 2015 exhibition
Negotiating Identity. The Space Between Assimilation and Resistance in Contemporary Dutch Caribbean Diasporan Art at the Caribbean Cultural Center African Diaspora Institute (CCCADI). Next to this she engaged in research about the blackface tradition of Zwarte Piet for her first major documentary
Black Pete, Zwarte Piet: The Documentary.
