Her Story – Su Historia
The Curaçao Museum announces the opening of Her Story / Su Historia.
By starting artist jeanninequesor
Thursday, June 15th, 2023
From 19.00 to 21.00
Opening with live performances.
Her Story / Su Historia is Jeanninequesor’s first exhibition. It features photographs and a video. According to the museum, the exhibition is a mixed-media storytelling experience you don’t want to miss because Jeannine’s story might be your story.
About the Artist
The Curaçao Museum explains that “jeanninequesor” is the artist name of the emerging artist Jeannine Käser-Lovert and introduces her as an artist and a social scientist with a BA in the sciences of society, culture, and religion. Jeannine is also a female empowerment coach, space holder, multi-disciplinary artist, and storyteller in the fields of photography, spoken word, poetry, and dance.
She is half Swiss, half Afro-Curaçaoan, and grew up in Switzerland. Jeannine has a strong connection to the island, its culture, and its language. Her mother taught her and her brother to speak Papiamentu from a young age.
The museum describes Jeannine as a highly intuitive person who follows her heart. After finishing her studies, she traveled through South America for a year, backpacking alone. She lived in the Amazon for four months, working as a translator for local jungle tours. She then worked in Honduras on a human rights project for a year, defending and protecting human rights defenders at risk.
After Honduras, she came to Curaçao, where she has lived for over four years. During this time, Jeannine got to know her mother’s island and its complexities much better beyond just being on holiday.
Jeannine’s story: Turning Point
In 2020, Jeannine had a terrible car accident: “My car flipped over three times, and I had an out-of-body experience, which was traumatic. The accident left me with severe back pain, and I could only lay on a mat on the floor. The healing journey has been intense with extensive self-study around trauma.”
During her recovery, Jeannine read books, followed online seminars, and listened to podcasts. But mostly, she was experiencing ‘being,’ as she learned that healing takes place on several layers simultaneously. “It is not just physical healing; it is also emotional, mental, and spiritual healing,” Jeannine recollects.
She explains, “The accident was the necessary invitation to face me, my inner world, my psyche, and my pain and explore what it means to learn to become comfortable with the uncomfortable. It was at that time, of deep pain, nightmares and anxiety, that I took my phone and started writing a text about myself, sitting outside on my porch, hearing the birds sing, feeling the wind on my skin, observing the beautiful blue sky and feeling blessed amongst it all.
I have lost the text, but it was the beginning of a journey I still find difficult to describe and explain to others.”
The exhibition reflects her journey: exploring her deepest self and the lives and experiences of others she connected with on her path. “Each of the pictures and texts of the exhibition holds an individual story; as a whole, they are telling my story. As individuals, we are part of a larger group of people, members of a society. In that sense, ‘Her Story’ also talks about society and the more significant stories at play, which I believe we should address collectively.”
Jeannine concludes by saying, “I hope that by sharing my work, I can touch people’s hearts and souls and that humans with various backgrounds can identify with the stories; we are not that different in the end. It is a body of work mostly born out of a vulnerable place of deep pain. At the same time, the pictures have a lot of color and aliveness, representing the transformation of pain and vulnerability into creation, beauty and balance.”
The exhibition remains till September 28, 2023.
When reproducing the text above, please credit the source: Curaçao Art®️ www.curacao-art.com. The artist retains all image rights of their artworks.