Vlag III

Vlag III is a separate work created as a complement to Art Project Armazoen.

When it turned out to be both logistically and financially impossible for our own sea container from Art Project Armazoen (in which the dance film Armazoen is screened) to make the international route, Monique Duurvoort decided that a different work needed to be created that could make the physical triangular journey between the Netherlands, Angola and Curaçao. This triangular journey refers to the story that lies at the basis of the dance film. After completing the triangular journey, the new work continues Art Project Armazoen's onward journey to Suriname and the US.

Vlag III is a reinterpretation of the Dutch flag, inspired by a historical VOC flag Monique saw hanging in Texel, at the location of the contextual programming, when Art Project Armazoen was presented there.

With this new work, Monique offers, from her own perspective, what she feels is a more complete representation and meaning of the way the Dutch flag was used by the various maritime trading companies during the era of the slave trade.

Alongside the MCC monogram, Vlag III also carries various data and cargo figures from the voyage of the slave ship Hof van Zeeland, such as the percentages of enslaved men, women and children on board, the duration of the middle passage, loading and unloading locations, mortality rates of the human merchandise, the number of crew members, and more.

Vlag III travels to every location on the international route to collect the names of the various descendants of our shared history. By writing these names onto the flag, they are physically and symbolically connected to one another.

Before departing for the very first international location, Angola, Monique's mother — a direct descendant (her biological grandfather was 17 when slavery was abolished by the Netherlands, her biological grandmother was 3 years old at the time) — was the first to write her name on the flag.