The Museum of Edible Earth has collaborated with the Amsterdam-based Community Storyteller Elvira Semmoh to produce EARTH(ING) 2020. The project takes shape as a series of public interventions between the months of September and October 2020 in Vondelpark – Amsterdam – around the statue Mama Baranka (1984) created by the artist Nelson Carrilho.
The Mama Baranka statue, The Netherlands. Photo by Anna Zamanipoor, 2020.
ELVIRA SEMMOH
'I’ve been a Storyteller my whole life. I love to communicate. My second passion has everything to do with taste, to be more specific the taste of happiness. I started working in the banking and finance industry, where learned a lot, but never felt really at ease. As from 2008 I’ve been attending events in Art and Culture and started to build a network of professionals and artists.
Elvira Semmoh giving a flower to Mama Baranka, The Netherlands. Photo by Anna Zamanipoor, 2020.
Midst 2016 I was invited to the studio of the sculptor Nelson Carrilho in Amsterdam. In bits and pieces I learned more about Carrilho’s craft and vision. The meaning and layerd reasons regarding the artwork Mama Baranka / Moeder Rots / Kerwin Monument, 1983 Vondelpark and the Dragers van Verre / Carriers from Afar, Westerpark 1989, intrigued me. The fact that so many important African Rooted stories were not at all known by a broader audience triggered me. Carrilho wished to connect new voices, especially youth in the Netherlands and abroad, to these art pieces. As from 2017 - until currently I realised different gatherings and dialogue venues in Carrilho’s studio in the Jordaan, as well as outdoors around the sculptures.'
Alain Chaney, Elvira Semmoh and Nelson Carrilho by the Mama Baranka statue, The Netherlands. Photo by Anna Zamanipoor, 2020.
Mama Baranka literally means ‘Mother Rock’ in Papiamento, a Creole language spoken in the ABC islands. It relates to the universal symbol of Mother Earth. Nelson Carrilho was commissioned in 1984 to produce an image as homage to Kerwin Lucas Duinmeijer, a 15 years-old Dutch teenager of Antillean descent who was murdered in an act of senseless violence against his skin color. Instead of producing an image of the boy, Nelson Carrilho decided to use the image of Mother Earth to spread a more universal message of vigilance, steadfastness and eternity instead of a protest against racism. Mama Baranka takes place in the Vondelpark in Amsterdam.
People gathered around the Mama Baranka statue, The Netherlands. Photo by Anna Zamanipoor, 2020.
Elvira Semmoh has been a Storyteller all her life, and moreover is interested in tastes, discovering and understanding the savours of life. Since 2019 she started an inner dialogue with herself through bringing flowers to the Mama Baranka in the Vondelpark. Her ritual brings also to life a dialogue with the people passing by and reaches to reflexions around interculturalism, race privilege and personal grounding. Her experiencing of self mental healing through connecting to Mother Earth is a strong vector along which our collaboration EARTH(ING) navigated.
The Museum of Edible Earth has connected itself with the Mama Baranka, bringing earth to Mother Earth and activating dialogues, emotions and spirituality through the tasting and the offering of the edible earth samples of its collection, shared with the public. Each performative activation of Mama Baranka included flower and earth offerings to the statue but also happened around the invitation of a different guest, all of these interventions building up a common history around Earth and how the primordial element is a way to ground ourselves and together.
Giving earth to the Mama Baranka statue, The Netherlands. Photo by Anna Zamanipoor, 2020.
Mama Baranka carries darkness and solidness. The cracks are visible in the Mama Baranka statue in the openings of the bronze. They represent pain, but one also can see light coming through them. Due to the bronze material and how all the elements cast darkness and light, the visitors’ connection to our installation were reflected accordingly.
People giving flowers to Mama Baranka, The Netherlands. Photo by Anna Zamanipoor, 2020.
The project EARTH(ING) investigated the monument of Mama Baranka as a place of power, connecting to it through a participatory, sometimes ceremonial, performance. The earth was placed in various forms around Mama Baranka, as well as on the sculpture itself, and played the role of an offering and a connecting tool with the audience. By bringing earth to the sculpture the visitors intensified its power and generated a wave of grounding for the people around. The focus was ‘earthing’ or ‘grounding’ as a healing tool during Corona times. Like flowers, as humans we come to life, we blossom, and we go back to earth.
Clay tasting at the Earth(ing) event, The Netherlands. Photo by Anna Zamanipoor, 2020.
Live music, Punto Buwano playing, at the Earth(ING) event, The Netherlands. Photo by Masha Ru, 2020.
Invited guests : Vincent Henar, Punto Buwano, Nelson Carrilho, Heleen Bustamente, Marian Markelo, Runny Margarita, Jo Sarah, Ayla Lunes, Lea Rachidan.
References:
'Earthing during Corona', Soil Series, by Tanya, 24-07-2020, the Netherlands (English) >>
'Wil je een snoepje of een stukje klei?', AmstelRadar, by Pilar Dinger, 18-09-2020, the Netherlands (Dutch) >>
'Earthing == Womb Energy?', Soil Series, by Tanya, 23-09-2020, the Netherlands (English) >>
