For Keti Koti 2023, these shirts and tote bags were screenprinted at Kapitaal Utrecht with the design on the left.
The design is inspired by artist Elizabeth Catlett, specifically the works 'Malcolm X Speaks For Us' and 'Homage to the Panthers' (below).
The two figures on top represent the freedom fighters from the former Dutch Caribbean and Suriname. Depicted on the left is the Lady of the Night, a flower native to South America and the Caribbean that only blooms for a short time during the night. It represents the opening the freedom fighters seized, specifically Tula in 1795 in Curaçao, He was inspired by Haitian revolutionary Toussaint l'Ouverture, whose surname itself also means "the opening". On the right, the sea represents the legends of enslaved Africans flying back over the sea to Africa.
Elizabeth Catlett, "Malcolm X Speaks for Us," 1969.
