Expo Speak Up
For many years Ziarah kept pretty quiet, hoping things would change without her intervening. She painted Speak Up because she felt the need to say something in her own way, for the black community, for a world without racism.
Besides paintings Ziarah also collaborates with her sister Tisja, creating another dimension by blending photography & painting in the form of intriguing collages.
This exposition is all about speaking up, sharing stories and creating an immersive experience. For this exposition 2 bespoke tracks have been created by Rik van Leeuwen & Laurens de Kramer better known as Soundhouse Amsterdam.
Location | Radio Radio Amsterdam |
Sound | Soundhouse Amsterdam |
Year | 2020 |
THE STRUGGLE
The Struggle simply reflects Ziarah’s struggle with being a mixed-race woman. Not really feeling herself in the Netherlands, neither in Curacao.
SPEAK UP
NAME IT
Name it represents the struggle of naming things, putting words on things. Communicating with the world, answering questions. Knowing how we feel right away.
GF 2020
This painting is a tribute to George Floyd’s life. The painting is dark just like the times Ziarah painted in. This piece is on auction and all proceeds will be donated to charity funds like Black Lives Matter.
DON’T FEEL LIKE MYSELF
When starting this piece Ziarah had something really colourful in mind. In the context of COVID and Black Lives Matter protests, Ziarah was feeling weird and alienated. So she painted over the portrait in white. Ziarah invites the viewer to interpret the painting in its own way.
YOUNG CHILDREN S-UP
With this piece Ziarah reminds us that children are the ones that we should perhaps listen to more. Young children are less afraid, more honest, and hopefully did not construct any bias yet. Ziarah invites them to tell their mind and be the hope of future generations.
MESSY MIND
Artist Ziarah Janssen is mixed race. Her father is white and her mother is black. As a child, she was not really aware of the History of Black communities. Ziarah is a pretty quiet character who like many of us, dislikes conflicts. The recent events that shook the world in the USA made ZIZI aware to fight racism. She realized she needed to do a lot of study on her own background as a mixed-race person. Messy mind is the mind of someone who is shocked, worried, on a path to educate herself.
UNFAIR
With Unfair, Ziarah simply says that there are a lot of things that we hear or see every day that are deeply unfair. In this painting we can recognize 3 people thanks to eyes, ears and mouths floating around. These faces represent the multiple voices we hear in the news or on social media.