Photographer and filmmaker Kevin Osepa (1994, Curaçao) presents a new installation in SCHUNCK's monumental showcase starting in May.
Osepa's photography and films revolve around the everyday and the mystical, the personal and the collective in the world of Afro-Caribbean youth. It is a world in which the reality of everyday life and the magical world of Afro-Caribbean rituals merge. Osepa's interest in mystical subjects stems from his childhood, which was strongly colored by the spiritual practices of "Brua. This fusion of Catholic, African and indigenous beliefs, is still strongly experienced, especially among the older generations in the Antilles.
In his work, Kevin Osepa examines personal and collective narratives of older, Antillean generations to both better understand his own identity and to preserve and make palpable again the mystical rituals, customs and stories of his ancestors. The themes he explores have an autobiographical basis, but also connect with social issues. For example, about the identity of Afro-Caribbean youth in a post-colonial world, masculinity within the Antillean context, the role of gender and the search for a sense of home.
About Kevin Osepa
Kevin Osepa was born in 1994 in Willemstad, Curaçao and lives and works in Amsterdam. He graduated as a photographer from the Utrecht School of the Arts in 2017. Osepa's film La Última Ascensión (2022) won a Golden Calf at the Netherlands Film Festival for Best Short Film. Earlier he was nominated for the Volkskrant Visual Arts Prize (2018), among others, and in 2023 he received both the Charlotte Köhler Prize and the Amsterdam Prize for the Arts.