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Art Project Armazoen is based on an excerpt from an entry in the Dutch slave ship Hof van Zeeland, which was part of the Middelburgse Commercial Company (MCC) making its first triangular voyage between Middelburg, Angola and the Caribbean between 1732 and 1734. MCC is the Zeeland counterpart of the United East Indian Company and West Indian Company, which contested the sovereignty of Lenapehoking when it established the company outpost New Netherland in 1624. New Amsterdam was the capital of New Netherland and the antecedent to New York City. This excerpt from the ship describes five Angolan women who chose to jump overboard rather than be enslaved. One of them died. These few sentences in the archive, describing this experience, became the basis for Art Project Armazoen – an ode to their resistance.
Art Project Armazoen was conceived by Monique Duurvoort and Afra Jonker. The dance film’s storyline, design, choreography and direction was completed by Monique Duurvoort. The concept of the dance film including its theme and subject matter was contributed by the project producer – Afra Jonker. This program is supported by the Dutch Film Fund, Cultuurfonds, Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst, and by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and the Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in New York.
October 8th
Join Black Gotham Experience and the South Street Seaport Museum for another edition of Nerdy Thursdays on the 1885 Tall Ship Wavertree. This program will be the opening reception for the Art Project Armazoen’s NYC Activation. After stops in the Netherlands, Angola, Curaçao, and Suriname, this international project arrives at its culminating stop – New York City October 8th to 25th.
October 8th | 6pm – 9pm
Wavertree Ship 89 South Street NY, NY 10038
The experience will be live-streamed to and/or recorded.
Fireside chat with Kamau Ware and curator & strategist Mahelia De Randamie
Dance performance by Cimone “Monie G” Graves
Music by DJ Jahmedicine.
“Sarah’s Fire” cocktails by Woody St. Juste.
October 10th
In addition to producing the NYC activation for Art Project Armazoen, Black Gotham Experience will be celebrating its 16th year throughout October. From a black historical walk that started on Wall Street in 2010 to producing international projects about the impact of the African Diaspora, we will take moments in reflecting on our journey that started with a question – “Where were the Black people?”
October 13th
By way of the river waterways, BGX reimagines colonial Lower Manhattan through an Afro-Futurist lens. 250K is commissioned by Battery Park City Authority (2026) and is the sequel of River Years, commissioned by Creative Time and Governors Island Arts (2022) on the occasion of Moving Chains, chapter two of Charles Gaines’s The American Manifest. River Years explored the colonial patterns that have informed a centuries-long relationship with what are known today as the East River, the Hudson River, and New York Harbor. 250K takes this conversation far into the future. You can RSVP through Battery Park City Authority.
October 16th – 25th
