Surinam
Between 1976 and 1981 I made 3 trips to Surinam, a former Dutch Colony in South-America which became independent from the Netherlands in November 1975. My first trip was during my study at the Rietveld Art School in Amsterdam. I went there for a period of 7 month during which I survived doing odd jobs for magazines, painting display-signs for small businesses etc. Meanwhile I tried my knowledge of photo-journalism, traveling the country photographing whatever struck my attention.
My second trip was in 1980. To pay for the costs I had assignments to cover the then elections for a newspaper (NRC) and some weekly opinion magazines (Vrij Nederland, De Groene Amsterdammer). On my way there, during a short break in New York, in a small NYTimes news article I found that there had been a coup and the elections were canceled.
I ended up being a news photographer covering the coup.
Apart from that - as originally intended - I worked on a series of articles (texts and photographs) for a book on the virtually non-existent land-rights of the Indigenous Peoples of Surinam. The publication was meant to coincide with the 4th Russell tribunal (1980) on land rights of the Indigenous Peoples of the America's in London. The book was never published due to the coup and it's aftermath. Since the leader of the revolting military and the de facto ruler of Surinam, Desi Bouterse, was of mixed blood, the indigenous inhabitants were reluctant to criticize the new rulers hoping they would help them in their quest, impeded the publication.
My last trip in 1981 did not really have a theme. I worked on an assignment by the architect Lucien Lafour to photograph all the buildings he had designed in Surinam over the years. For some articles I photographed what was visible of the changed country after the coup. Meanwhile I visited old friends and places.
