Chris Keulemans

Closer to Our Colonial Inheritance

Closer to Our Colonial Inheritance is a series of poetic interventions by writers, poets and spoken word artists to accompany the exhibition Our Colonial Inheritance. Beyond Walls, Read My World & Wereldmuseum invited various writers to draw inspiration from an object or theme of their choice. During a live event, they shared their reflections in an intimate setting, followed by a conversation with those present. Their performances were captured in a series of short films.

Watch the short film of this performance below.

Resistance with Chris Keulemans

“What is their gaze focused upon, are they looking at the future or do they see the enemy there?”

The speaker is writer Chris Keulemans. He authored the book Verzet (Resistance), an ode to everyday forms of resistance. In Closer to Our Colonial Legacy, Chris explores what his own resistance and solidarity mean in today’s world.

Chris Keulemans (Tunis, b. 1960) is a travelling writer. His homebase is north Amsterdam. The child of development workers, he grew up in Tunis, Bobo Dioulasso, Baghdad and Bogor. Over recent years, Keulemans has traced resistance in cities such as Jakarta and Sarajevo, Dnipro and Ramallah. In Amsterdam, he was the director of several cultural centres: Perdu, de Balie and the Tolhuistuin. He writes reports and essays for De Groene Amsterdammer, OneWorld and Byline Times. His book Verzet was published in March 2024 by Uitgeverij Jurgen Maas.

Onze koloniale erfenis ingericht door kunstenaar Farida Sedoc en met soundscape van Myrtho. FOTO Rick Mandoeng