The design of the jacquard fabric was created according to a composition Stach Szumski worked on during his SESAMA/Razem Pamoja Foundation residency in Indonesia. Originally, the work was made in batik. The tapestry presents a fanciful portrait of Jan Pieterszoon Coen, an officer of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), which in 1609–1621 made a brutal military conquest of the Banda Islands, in today’s Indonesia. The aim was to monopolize the extremely profitable trade in nutmeg and other spices from the islands. Under the pretext of the death of one of the white officials, the colonizers ethnically cleansed the local population and took over lucrative transactions. The composition maintains the aesthetics characteristic of Szumski, derived from post-graffiti and street painting, which the artist often uses, combining motifs drawn from local research with visual codes and symbols of late capitalism.

Jagna Lewandowska