Curious who has been selected for Spark Narration?
Please let us introduce our new talents and their exciting plans.
A little while ago, we started a brand new edition of Spark Narration. A program where designers, artists and journalists get to work together and develop their own productions. In the upcoming 6 months, 3 selected teams will work at A Lab Amsterdam on various productions regarding this year's theme: Suriname in Amsterdam-Noord.
The taste or sound of home
Chetana Pai (interaction technologist, workshop designer, podcast producer, and zine maker) and Sarah Saleh (designer, collage artist and DJ), decided to try to make a map of the region of Amsterdam Noord with the help of the Surinamese community. ‘We believe food is the best way to intimately get to know a culture. We plan to walk through Noord to find Surinamese food shops, markets, and small food outlets/restaurants to speak to the people working there to see if they can guide us (by drawing a map) to the places they go to in the neighborhood when they are looking for the taste or sound of home. By tracing, mapping and recording we will document the shops, and the in-between places, connecting the dots.’ The duo is aiming to create a collective map of the neighborhood, a printed zine, and a companion podcast that adds more sound and context to the printed products.
Amsterdam Noord and Paramaribo Noord
The second project is from Eva van der Zand (media specialist), Connor Mcmullen (story engineer) and, Zippora Martosoewando (singer and artist). The three want to explore the sounds and music of the Suriname community in Amsterdam Noord by making field recordings to understand which sounds are part of their daily lives. And what are the differences and similarities between Amsterdam Noord and Paramaribo Noord? ‘Next to that, we are already starting to plan our album release party, so better get ready for a unique evening with dance, food, music, and touching stories in April. If you want to follow our developments visit our first public channel on Instagram named 7496kmsoundwavesapart. This is the distance between Amsterdam and Paramaribo.’
Shaping of society through the lens of food
The third, and last project, will be produced by Giulia Pompilj (a Colour-based storyteller) and Polina Slavova (a research-based designer). The project is an investigation into food customs and recipes as a context for the cultural continuation and strengthening of the Surinamese communal identity. Recipes have an endangered nature caused by processes of integration, cultural appropriation and suppression. ‘By overlapping the boundaries between geopolitics, food and visual art we are creating a dialogue about colonialism and the shaping of society through the lens of food.’
