In Mijn Vaders Huis / In My Fathers House

Iris Kensmil chose the title In My Father’s House as homage to the book by Anil Ramdas. Her house offers a personal interpretation of the dilemmas raised in his volume. For this installation, Iris Kensmil works from memories of her childhood in Suriname, where various beliefs and Winti^[2] rituals and taboos were part of her family tradition. She takes a Black feminist perspective in her translation of the role of memory and ritual into a presentation that creates space for all manner of references and connections with other themes in her work.

Iris Kensmil is well known for her topical work about those engaged in the struggle for a future created by and for Black people, about the battle for freedom and emancipation from slavery, and about equality. In her perspective on the future, she does not focus on the past, but on what her protagonists do or did with it. By making these choices, they create their own identity and become important to us.

Another  common thread of sisterhood and brotherhood runs through Iris Kensmil’s work. One can recognize the struggle for freedom and equality in her work, but she also refers to the ideas of Marcus Garvey and other advocates of Black self-determination in segregation. These topics represent the possibility for Black people working on the future to share together feelings based on their shared experiences and traditions; of being at home in one’s father’s house.