Excerpts from a Plantocracy 
2026, 2-channel installation, stereo

Excerpts of a Plantocracy appropriates the industrial films of Dutch East Indies rubber plantations, part of the Eye collection, to expose them as an archive of lies. The work incorporates citations from early twentieth-century written documents, including those by the private secret service, which served the planter’s interests by hunting down socialist educators. The corporate propaganda served as part of a system of absolute power of Dutch men, empowered by the coolie ordinance  within a broader terror apparatus of apartheid. While the laws and companies rendered them agents sustaining de facto slavery and human trafficking, their sexual behavior was regulated according to profit-driven considerations, including a marriage ban for young employees. The archival footage is haunted by sound and images of its aftermath into a revisionist choreography.

EXHIBITION
Eye Filmmuseum | Eye(s) Open; New Perspectives on Colonial Film Heritage 
Curated by Hicham Khalidi, opening February 2026