'Wan Destination Wanhoop'

In Wan Destination Wanhoop, SCAD alumnus Xavier Robles de Medina (B.F.A., animation, 2012; B.F.A., painting, 2012) excavates images of 20th-century Suriname dating to the country’s independence from the Netherlands in 1975. The works in the exhibition reveal the artist’s meticulous and labored practice of examination and translation.

In a series of three paintings, Robles de Medina appropriates archival video footage of historic flooding in Afobaka that resulted from the construction of the Brokopondo Reservoir in the early 1960s to generate electricity for the aluminum manufacturing giant Suralco. The paintings give witness to the destruction surrounding the dam, showing the submerged Maroon villages that residents were forced to abandon. By unearthing this forgotten history, Robles de Medina documents the violent progress of capitalist industrialization that is rooted in colonization, European imperialism, and anti-blackness, and has had global consequences including environmental calamity.