Majalla's Mantle: Frayed Edges of the Leiden Cloth
What hidden stories can you find in textiles – in a cloth, a shirt, a pair of jeans? How do you unravel a painful history? In the participatory art project Majalla's Mantel, various artists investigate the connections between the historical Leiden cloth industry and the slave trade.
The name Majalla refers to an enslaved boy who was mentioned in the correspondence of Daniel van Eijs, a Leiden cloth merchant and later plantation owner. Historian Sjoerd Ramackers discovered this tragic story during his research into the role of Leiden in colonial history. The name Majalla symbolizes the countless lives that were lost on Van Eijs' plantations in Berbice (present-day Guyana), where the average lifespan of enslaved people was only eight years.
The unraveled textiles from these sessions are combined into tactile sculptures by artist Eugenie Boon; the stories are woven into songs. The results come together in an installation and a series of performances. The first one will take place on Friday 8 November during the special evening programme of Lakenhal Laat . Other dates will be published on the website soon.
When
- Every tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday and sunday starting from november 8th, 2024 until january 12th, 2025 from 10:00 to 17:00