INTERVIEW: Michelle Piergoelam

FAIRY TALES AND MYTHS

PETER: Your photographic work is based on in-depth research into archives, collections, literature and oral history. You find stories in a distant and unknown world.

MICHELLE: Yes, for me, telling the story is a very important part of my work.

PETER: How did you become a photographer and a storyteller?

MICHELLE: I was first introduced to photography at secondary school, after which I went to the photography college in Rotterdam. The emphasis there was, of course, on technique; it was 90 per cent technique, 10 per cent story. After graduating, I went on to the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) in The Hague. There, it was the other way around: 10 per cent technique, 90 per cent the story. Because I’d already mastered the technique, I could focus on what I wanted to tell. My group went on a trip to Serbia and were set to work there. We were given carte blanche, but knew neither the country nor the language – that was a challenge! I set to work on a Serbian version of Cinderella. I couldn’t quite put my finger on why I was interested in fairy tales and myths, but decided that my final-year project would reflect on such cultural traditions.

PETER: And that’s when Suriname came into the picture?

MICHELLE: Yes, why on earth did I know nothing about my own culture? I ordered booklets on fairy tales and myths in Surinamese culture. It was all completely new to me, because my parents came to the Netherlands when they were very young – around the time of Suriname’s independence – and couldn’t pass anything on to me. I read a Surinamese fairy tale: the abduction of Mawi. The girl sneaked down to the water. The water spirit reached out his hand and took her underwater. That’s how she became a mermaid; in reality, of course, it was about the danger of drowning. This story really struck a chord with me, because as a child I’d had a near-drowning experience. Fairy tales and myths aren’t just fables; they help you get to know cultural traditions and tell you about life.

PETER: Did that insight lead you to your final-year project?

MICHELLE: Yes, definitely. I discovered that the stories of the spider Anansi served as a secret language for enslaved people during the era of slavery. That’s how I began my larger, ongoing project exploring elements that offered hope and strength back then. It began with my final-year project, the photo book The Untangled Tales. It’s a loose-leaf, fold-out book, designed by Sybren Kuiper. It’s a bit fiddly to handle, but it works very well because you need space and time to really immerse yourself in it.

Michelle Piergoelam, The Untangled Tales

SURINAMESE ROOTS

PETER: The Untangled Tales does indeed demand the viewer’s full attention. Do you have a specific audience in mind whilst you’re working, or does that come later?

MICHELLE: Initially, it’s my own motivation. I now enjoy discussing my ideas with others, but when I’m working on a project, I first seek the space to explore it in depth myself. At the Academy, every assignment came with the question: ‘Who is your audience?’ Everyone, of course, but I created The Untangled Tales first and foremost for people like myself, who knew little about our culture growing up and want to learn more about it.

PETER: You’re receiving a lot of recognition – how has that praise inspired your next projects?

MICHELLE: It’s really special that my final-year project has been so well received. I find it hard to say exactly what I’ll take from that into my next projects. I’ve decided to turn The Untangled Tales into a multi-year research project with various chapters. Songs in a Strange Land is the next instalment. It’s about work songs that enslaved people used to make their labour more bearable. They could also hide messages in them, or send a cry for help to the Watra mama, the water spirit. I’d come up with that topic, but it was very difficult at first because I could only find eight or ten of them.

PETER: How did you manage to bring the subject to life?

MICHELLE: During the Lighthouse programme at FOTODOK, I had the chance to reflect on this, and that’s when I realised that this was precisely why I needed to explore the subject. After all, these fragments form part of Surinamese history, which is poorly documented as it is. So, I asked specific questions of my source material: how is a song sung, what does it contain, when does it take place? I learnt that, after a long day’s work, people would gather round the campfire and tell each other Anansi stories, very expressively. I want to translate this into images, not as illustrations, but to convey the atmosphere and the meaning.

PETER: How is your work received in Suriname?

MICHELLE: People in Suriname find it very interesting and important that I’m drawing attention to this culture through my work. They’re very proud that this is being exhibited and the stories shared so that more people can learn about them.