Vesuhely Americaan

The Curaçao Museum announces the opening of a new exhibition:

Manchá Ku Goso

By Vesuhely Americaan.

Thursday, November 30, 2023,
From 19.00 to 21.00,
Location: The Curaçao Museum.

Introduction of Vesuhely Americaan by The Curaçao Museum
Vesuhely Americaan has always enjoyed moments of reflection, and human behavior intrigues her. She wants to dissect situations and use her work as a tool to investigate and better understand them. Being from Curaçao, a small island with a dominant catholic influence and a melting pot of different cultures, she is constantly confronted with questions about identity.

In her work, there is a constant search for understanding identity, a need to rediscover it and to create a new identity. While Vesuhely was working on herself for two years, she also realized that many women around her had the same insecurities and self-image issues but were not even aware of or did not have a way to work through them. Still, Vesuhely, through her practice, was able to work through all the questions and do all the self-reflection to be the woman she is today.

National softball team
Through her research, she questioned why she viewed herself and other women the way she did. She did interviews with several women ranging from 18 to 35 and wrote several self-reflective pieces. Since April 2023, she has worked with a group of ladies on the National softball team, aged 20 to 28. During the sessions with these ladies, she used prompts to start conversations and the creation process.

With the Manchá Ku Goso project, Vesuhely created a safe space for women and provided them with the tools to question, self-reflect, and express themselves through the sessions; Vesuhely exponentially uses different forms of art, like painting, writing, and dancing.

Being stained
Interestingly, during her self-reflection, Vesuhely found herself wondering how much of her identity is (or used to be) based on her beliefs. At some point, she could finally leave the old ‘perfectionist’ side of her behind and started searching for a balance between the old and new her. What is most important is that now she is okay with not being perfect, thus with being stained (manchá).
 
The Curaçao Museum thinks that many of us will recognize ourselves in the theme of this project. Living in a society and world where we are constantly bombarded with what the ‘perfect image’ is supposed to be, how your body, face, hair and nails should look like to be considered ‘beautiful.’ A world and society where not only the (social) media constantly tells you how you should look but also your peers and surroundings.

Visit the exhibition
Join Vesuhely Americaan on November 30, 2023, and find out how she dealt with these challenges and transformed them into this beautiful project while helping a group of young ladies along the way resulting in the exceptional exhibition ‘Manchá Ku Goso’. 

The Curaçao Museum
Van Leeuwenhoekstraat z/n.
Mundo Nobo, Otrobanda.
Open from Tuesday to Friday: 08:30 – 16:30 hrs.
Saturday: 10:00 – 16:30 hrs.
They are closed on Sunday and Monday.

When reproducing the text above, please credit the source: Curaçao Art®️ www.curacao-art.com. The artist retains all image rights of their artworks.