Encounters | Encontros
Curated by Ileana L. Selejan
Grote Kerk Breda, The Netherlands
September 13 - November 3, 2024
Rosângela Rennó is one of the most important contemporary artists working with photography at an international level today. This is her first solo exhibition in The Netherlands representing a unique opportunity to experience her work first-hand.
Encounters takes transnational connections as its starting point, contemplating the shared histories between Western European countries and the so-called ‘New World’. Rennó’s photographic series and multimedia installations are integrated within the space of the Grote Kerk, enabling a dialogue across time and space, engaging themes related to colonialism, empire and identity.
The site-specific installation Resistance of Breda or Las Lápidas (2024) acts as a connecting element, the exhibition’s narrative thread. It amplifies the space of the church, emphasising its monumentality, while drawing attention to less visible aspects of its history. Rennó’s approach is characterised by her keen attention to the construction of historic narratives, to the ways in which the past is remembered and archived, and how it is visualised through art and aesthetics. The work on view reflects these intricate connections, while considering areas of contact and exchange between Brazil and The Netherlands in the context of European colonialism.
Few visitors today might be aware that the territory of Dutch Brazil, also known as Nieuw-Holland or New Holland, spanned the region of Pernambuco and was colonised between 1630 and 1654 under the auspices of the Dutch West India Company. Significantly, the Dutch controlled not only the production of sugar but also the slave trade from Africa via territorial gains including the Dutch Gold Coast and Loango-Angola. At its peak, New Holland dominated global sugar production.
Rennó’s work enables journeys through the past and through memory. It highlights the importance of photography as a means of inscribing information, and of exploring incongruities within the historic record. Alternatively, we might think of photography as a means to trouble, to unsettle the past. While posing difficult questions, the exhibition nevertheless carves out space to potentially find means to repair, to mend, even heal, within the monumental interior of a former spiritual abode.
Documentation photography by Aad Hoogendoorn.
