Poesia Doloroso

Poesia Doloroso depicts and archives “artefacts” from memories of places in the Caribbean which have been lost and have gone largely undocumented. It’s a physical manifestsation of the complex emotionality of nostalgia, born out of an urge for tangibilty and a coping mechanism for grief. Each artefact exists simultaneously along a digital counterpart, an avenue taken in response to the inherent vulnerabilities of cultural heritage objects and their survival accross generations. What if all those years back, cultural heritage couldn’t simply be picked up or pried out of hands and displaced many seas away to catch dust in the hallway of some European monarch? What is the extent of the agency we have gained now that our cultural heritage can exist in a realm where fire, weather and displacement virtually can’t harm it?

The memories involved have been gathered using a mental exercise titled: “immersive retrospective meditation”. A mental exercise developed by Sandy where participants are guided towards a vivid psychological experience of a place of their choosing.

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Poesia Doloroso is now on view during The Autonomous Art Practice & The Dream at CBK Zuidoost from April 26 - July 1 2025.