As Art Is My Witness: The Aesthetics of Disaster in the Caribbean
Dit artikel is alleen beschikbaar in het Engels.
“This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language. That is how civilizations heal.” – Toni Morrison
In the context of the exhibition ‘Whose Land is it Anyway?’, which took place at MaMA’s showroom from February to April 2024, program maker Caithlin Courtney Chong invites interdisciplinary scholar, curator, and archivist glenpherd to reflect on temporal perceptions of climate change in the Dutch Caribbean.
As Art Is My Witness: The Aesthetics of Disaster in the Caribbean
When most people think of the word ‘disaster’ in the context of the Dutch Caribbean, they imagine torrential rains hammering down mercilessly on the corrugated tin roofs of colourful wooden dwellings;
Longs strips of white sandy beach strewn with uprooted palm trees, ripped out of the ground by raging tempests;
Shopping streets inundated with brackish sewage water from overflowing storm drains;
Silt and mud coursing down from hills onto roads, carrying debris into the ocean;
The rising tide and the thick smell of brine in the air as the encroaching sea swallows up the shores, one centimetre at a time.
All these images form part of the familiar repertoire of disaster narratives about a region that is at the forefront of the struggle against climate change – including its social, economic, and political implications. Despite overwhelming evidence that calamity is imminent in the Dutch Caribbean, calls for climate justice are still casually brushed aside as the whims of local grouches and overzealous scientists, or simply ignored altogether. What once seemed like a trite intellectual exercise of ‘what-if’ scenarios, has escalated into a full-blown existential crisis. At this juncture, it is no longer a question of ‘if’, but a matter of ‘when’ ecological collapse will make its impact. And for many, these scenarios are already part of the present.
While we are currently observing a chain of accelerating events – whether directly and up close, or from a distance behind a screen – these isolated disaster accounts continue to saturate our news cycles, triggering a heightened sense of urgency. This urgency is seldomly extended to forms of climate change that are ever-present – on ordinary days, when the heavens are not pouring down, the streets are not flooded, and buildings have not been ravaged. Why is that?
This gap in perception – our fixation on immediate calamity over slower, subtler forms of disaster – highlights the crucial role storytelling plays in shaping our understanding of the climate crisis.
Let us return to the beginning of this text. Read the first few lines again. What stands out?
The language used is vivid, graphic, and striking. It aesthetically draws our attention to the immediacy, intensity, and scale of weather events as they occur in the here and now. More importantly, this language constructs disaster as transient and momentary. Such a conception precludes other ways of understanding disaster; as an event that unfolds at a much slower rate and across different scales. Our collective urgency seems to be exclusively reserved for the notion of disaster as instantaneous.
For example, when lightning strikes, it is often the bright flash and the following thunderous roar that arrests us. But there are those among us attuned to smaller signs: they sense a quickening in the pace of the wind, the faint scent of rain in the air, perceive the slightest grey cloud forming in the distance – long before the bolt cuts through the sky.
These two different representations of the same event show how narratives of disaster shape our perception of time. One is marked by immediacy, the other by anticipation. Our media landscape privileges the former, leaving the latter underrepresented. This analogy also challenges what it means to bear witness to disaster. It compels us to reorient our senses and to shift our focus, stretching our awareness across space and time. In the Caribbean, understanding disaster requires a mode of perception and an aesthetic practice that attends to what is subtle, faint, and gradual.
Upon hearing the word ‘disaster’ in the context of the Dutch Caribbean, the mind’s eye is unlikely to conjure up images of all-inclusive luxury resorts sprawled along the coastline;
Quaint souvenir shops teeming with local curios offered by vendors that welcome you with a smile and, of course, a good bargain;
Mega cruise ships hopping from one island to the next, leaving a trail of billowing black smoke and irreparably damaged coral reefs in their wake;
Tourists sunbathing on privatised beaches, cocktail in hand, just a stone’s throw away from neighbourhoods where people live in abject poverty;
The construction site of a new resort on a spot once inhabited by a highly endangered species of mangroves vital to the local ecosystem.
I ask again: what stands out?
The language here is equally vivid, but this time the images evoke idyllic beauty alongside its unsettling counterpart. Such representations, unlike those at the beginning of this text, are rarely included in disaster narratives of the Dutch Caribbean. They fail to arrest us like those familiar images we have come to associate with the term ‘disaster’, yet they are just as critical, because they reveal the mundane and insidious ways disaster unfolds in real-time, punctuated by more striking, momentary calamities. The slow violence recounted above has long-lasting effects – actions prioritising short-term profit at the expense of the vitality of the islands will always accrete into a burden for future generations. Conceiving of the interconnectedness between past, present, and future demands a much more stringent accountability of those who will not be around to experience future disaster.
At the start of this text, I asked, “Why is that?”, referring to the capacity for some disaster narratives to arrest us and spark a sense of urgency. Now, another question arises: How can we alter this perception?
To answer this question clearly and concisely, I say: through art. Through its capacity to reveal the unseen and challenge dominant narratives, art enables us to bear witness to disaster in its slippery forms. Whether in the form of literature, visual media, or performance, art practices can engage our senses, and throw into stark relief what might otherwise be overlooked. Within the context of the Caribbean, where colonial histories and tourism economies intersect, art becomes a vital tool for imagining sustainable futures and reclaiming narratives of place and identity. By reframing disaster, artistic narratives can expand our temporal and spatial awareness, enabling us to see the connections between everyday kinds of destruction and acute calamities.
Because, as James Baldwin has written: “only an artist can tell and only an artist have told, since we have heard of man, what it is like for anyone that gets this planet, to survive it. What it is like to die, or to have somebody die, what it is like to fear death, what is it like to fear, what it is like to love, what it is like to be glad.” In bearing witness, Baldwin reminds us, art reveals, but also connects us to collective experiences of survival, resilience, and vitality. It is through this connection that we can begin to reimagine disaster—not as a fleeting moment, but as a process demanding our sustained attention and action.
Want to know more about the exhibition ‘Whose Land is it Anyway?’ Click here!
Photos by Ricardo van den Bergh
As an interdisciplinary scholar, curator, and archivist with a foundation in the humanities and social sciences, glenpherd applies postcolonial theory and critical perspectives to his work. By weaving together personal narratives, articulating core values, and honouring diverse ways of knowing, they strive to co-create paradigms that foster meaningful cultural exchanges and support sustainable, equitable livelihoods for communities on society’s margins.
Born and raised in Curaçao—a young island nation navigating the complexities of the Anthropocene—glenpherd brings an acute awareness of the transformative potential in addressing issues at the intersection of art, culture, ecology, and identity. His academic, personal, and professional journey has cultivated a deep interest in postcolonial studies, anthropology, sociology, visual culture, archival practices, and Caribbean literature, all of which serve as central themes in their work.
Caithlin (1997, Curaçao) is an artist, curator and cultural organiser. She moved to the Netherlands in 2016 to pursue a bachelor’s diploma in Fashion Design, but ultimately changed course to Fine Arts. She graduated in 2022 and since then has been searching for a connection between her two homes. This exhibition is a thread that she aims to weave into her broader work through collaboration with Caribbean artists– by envisioning a community-based future outside of this hyper-capitalistic/individualistic life, to connect with her fellow Carribbeans, and to look for answers together to the questions of our history that can teach us about our future.
‘Whose Land is it Anyway?’ Deals with themes of self-sufficiency, sustainability, de-colonialism and tourism and the intersectionalities between them. Together with young artists from Aruba and Curacao, and the public, the exhibition investigates different means for becoming less dependent on tourism,and searches for other sources of self-sufficiency that can contribute to the future of the ABC-SSS islands.