About
EL PRAN Projecten
Island and prison carry a conceptual symbolism that unifies them. Both are associated with the idea of isolation, confinement, and imprisonment. Ideas that present a spatial, administrative, classist, and cultural segmentation in their structural social model; in which the PRAN, as a social and cultural Caribbean subject, exercises a monarchical role within his already segmented space.
Based on this maxim, EL PRAN Projecten stands as a reservoir of new projects concerning artistic thought and production within that very monarchical space, segmented and separated in the Caribbean, in the form of an island. That proposes the creation and growth of new areas of discussion, exchange, borrowing, and influence, in which the media, supports, and languages are mixed.
We intend to create parallel paths of artistic pronunciation, production, and materialization by adding them to the pre-existing monarchical system. In the same way (bridging the distances) in which the imposition of Western domination on the indigenous universe occurred and, later on, the slave trade in the Caribbean area.
The intention behind the appropriation of the acronym PRAN to name this platform of critical thought, and unprejudiced curatorship, is to incite the establishment of a new monarchical system. This system adds value, form, and logic to both creative and philosophical processes. Furthermore, to add to the preservation of heritage and, above all, to raise awareness about the necessary production and acceptance of artistic resources, patrimonial values, and curatorial praxis in the Dutch Caribbean.
EL PRAN Projecten generates within its dynamic segmentation of study and artistic production the platform Curaduría Malandra. The container and content enrich and complement each other. The segments of an island/prison entail independence in their dependency that, in this case, is constituted by EL PRAN Projecten.
Curaduría Malandra
Is a bet that calls to challenge or disrupt the stigmatization of the Western form of thought regarding artistic production. To put the cultural, social, patrimonial, economic, philosophical, and political variables on the art table, beyond the legal boundaries.
This platform aims to give voice, face, materialization, and visualization to artistic projects. Projects that in their essence anchor cultural appropriation; in which those involved -artists, curators, collaborators, critics, and anyone who identifies with Curaduría Malandra– can find themselves a space of realization, exchange, symbiosis. It is a space in which some can add the experiences of others to their praxis. Also, wherein the “taking and teaching” so unique to the Caribbean idiosyncrasy, is assumed in all its expression.
Curaduría Malandra appropriates this term because of its Latin origin, which is also associated with the so-called “Islas inutiles” useless islands – Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao. This relationship of intense flows between Latin American and Euro-Caribbean culture marked since long ago, from the disputes between the Spanish, the French, and the Dutch, the conformation of a geographic, economic, political, cultural zone with remarkable particularities.
With Curaduría Malandra we try to found a community of malandros: malandro artists, malandro exhibitions, malandro curators/critics, malandro spectators. To strengthen from this multi-spatial, medial and thematic project that malandro spirit that allows generating new forms of critical, fresh, contemporary thinking. Furthermore, creating systems of thoughts that touch various sensitive points, thorns, and also the shadow of a society; issues that are alien to the official regulations, spicy for some and necessary for many. We want to provoke, incite thought and production, to delve into the other side of the social coin and reveal its singularities from the premises of art, with projects that bring new light, that awaken curiosity and that open the eyes of those who have not yet done so.