The granted applications for the first round of the Open Call Slavery Memorial Year by the Mondriaan Fund have been announced. The Mondriaan Fund received € 1 million for the open call, which was equally divided between two application rounds. In the first round, a total of 150 applications were presented to an independent committee. Of these applications, fifteen initiatives were awarded a contribution. The initiatives cover a range of disciplines, target groups and subjects, all offering a distinctive means of drawing attention to the Dutch slave past. The activities will take place during the Memorial Year, which runs from 1 July 2023 to 1 July 2024. 

The first round of the Open Call Slavery Memorial Year by the Mondriaan Fund closed on 16 January 2023. An independent advisory committee assessed the applications based on the determined criteria. The diversity of projects, regional distribution and a balanced allocation between the different types of projects also played a role in the assessment. In light of the large number of submitted applications and the associated budgetary constrictions, the Mondriaan Fund is unfortunately unable to award contributions to all applications that were evaluated positively by the committee. The committee advised that the following 15 applications should be awarded a contribution:

Fundashon Museo Tula, IJswater Films in co-production with Tulsa Studio’s, Karolien Helweg, Marjet Zwaans, Mathieu Wijdeven, Mateo Pérez Vega, Rakesh Kanhai, Ruben La Cruz, Sites of Memory Stichting, Soraya Pol, Stichting Comite Herdenking Javaanse immigratie (Stichji), Stichting Rancho, The Black Archives (New Urban Collective), Untold, Wintertuin Curaçao.

The plans for the granted applications range from films to exhibitions and symposia to installation art and podcasts. The initiatives also address a range of subjects and focus on diverse target groups.

Mathieu Wijdeven & Mateo Pérez Vega, for example, will use the contribution to develop a short film and video installation about the Surinamese artist G.G.T. Rustwijk. The Sites of Memory Stichting will produce a site-specific performance about freedom and resistance. Using research and interviews, Stichting Rancho will uncover stories about the neglected slave history of the Rancho district of Oranjestad, Aruba. And Rakesh Kanhai will make a podcast in which he goes in search of typical culturally-rooted ideas and expressions that are the remnants of slavery and colonialism.

Eelco van der Lingen, Director of the Mondriaan Fund, on the first round of granted applications:

‘The initiatives in this first round pique curiosity and offer a glimpse of how the abolition of slavery will be commemorated and celebrated during the upcoming Memorial Year. The applications covered a wide range of backgrounds and disciplines, and the submitted plans were first rate, so we would have liked to have been able to grant more applications. But we look forward to the selected initiatives, which each make a distinct contribution to increased knowledge and awareness of the Dutch slavery past and its impact on the present’.

About the Open Call Slavery Memorial Year

As part of the Slavery Memorial Year, the Dutch Government is making funds available to support activities and initiatives that contribute to commemorating and celebrating the abolition of slavery and/or that increase the level of knowledge and raise awareness of the slavery past and its repercussions that continue to affect the present. The Mondriaan Fund and the Cultural Participation Fund each received € 1 million to support activities during the Memorial Year that involve institutions as well as individuals and small local initiatives based in the Kingdom of the Netherlands (the Netherlands, Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao, Saba, Sint Maarten and Sint Eustatius).