The ‘Haunted’ video-installation examines how the nostalgic views on the former “Dutch East Indies” creates ample breeding ground for forgetfulness towards its overlooked and contested histories and how they have produced the colonial spectres of Dutch History. The Haunted video-installation serves as an introduction into the fourth iteration of the And Other Spectres research project which aims to develop reading of the colonial “spectres” both as an embodied presence and as memories intertwined within bodies, material spaces and objects both in Indonesia and The Netherlands.
The Haunted video installation is a multi-dimensional space exhibiting a video essay by Janilda Bartolomeu which plants the seeds for the fourth iteration of the And Other Spectres research project into the colonial spectres of the former “Dutch East Indies”. The video essay focuses on how the nostalgic views on the former “Dutch East Indies”, fosters the breeding ground for forgetfulness towards its overlooked and contested histories and how this has produced the colonial spectres of Dutch History. How are these spectres able to cut through the dogged nostalgic perspectives towards colonial histories? How are their histories heard? The Haunted room provides the experience of converging spaces and temporalities which reflects on the condition of post-colonialism as well as the colonial spectres’ ability to move across these times and space, therefore disrupting them. Since the And Other Spectres research focuses on the speculative presence of haunted objects, originating from the former Dutch East Indies, in Dutch homes, the objects in the installation consist of tokens of this nostalgia towards that period and objects which pertain to the various paths of this research. Whereas the function of colonialism seems to be the act of confining matters (bodies, materials, objects) into their rightful places, the objects in this installation disrupt this notion by breaking through or out.