Doh Mix Meh Up

“Doh mix meh up: We always negotiating” (2015) is a video installation that ideally is presented in a blacked out room where the 4 walls are projected on or in a blacked out corridor space where one needs to walk through while the work is projected on the left and right walls. Upon entering, the Installation places you within the context of the “Carnaval di Aruba”. My recordings were informed by literature research and resulted in a spatial multi-screen installation that reflects the celebration of diversity. In Doh mix meh up, I experiment with the interaction between elements such as the capability/incapability of representation, presentation and understanding of a postcolonial time and space. In the work I used Calypso and Road March songs together with recording of the discussions surrounding it as a metaphor for negotiations on Aruban identity and nationalism, which keeps reinventing itself. My observations were that Aruba seemingly has a “nationalism” that “fortunately” is not being shaped in conventional ways because of its condition of constant negotiation. The “we” refers to the island Aruba and yet the community or the individual is incapable of giving an exact definition of it. This constant negotiation is thus a manifestation of diversity that shows us a fundamental characteristic of the Caribbean.