The Empire project

EMPIRE at IDFA

A lot of people who couldn’t make it to IDFA have been asking to see what our installation there looked like. So on the last day of the festival, after the doors to the venue were closed and the public had been sent home, we took these pictures. We think they give a nice impression of the feel of the work. 

Big thanks to Rogier, Marc, Veerle and Fleurie at De Brakke Grond for giving us such a beautiful platform for Empire—and thanks to Joost and everyone else at IDFA for an amazing festival.

God is dead

It is with great sadness that we must announce the passing of Herman Steur, god of Sri Lanka’s “Netherlands Welcome Village” and Empire’s first leading man. He died on March 24th, 2012. 

Without Herman, there would be no Empire. His openness and sense of humor laid the cornerstone for our creation. Two years after working with him, we still can’t escape the feeling that he is, in many ways, the ultimate Empire character. Deeply religious, yet breezy and whimsical. Impassioned, yet self-aware.

Herman’s pioneer spirit led him to Sri Lanka’s northeast coast. There, he created a simulacra world that was constantly at war with its natural environment. Dutch architecture is not meant for the tropics. Bricks crumble in the extreme damp, and white walls become streaked with gray mold. But despite all of this, Herman persisted, forcing his plans into existence, transforming his idiosyncratic dreams into reality. 

Herman did not hesitate to let down his guard and let us into his empire. It is thanks to his generosity that now, two years later, we are still criss-crossing the globe in search of the lost tribes of postcolonialism. 

RIP, Herman.

The small-scale miners of Suriname

…are risking life and limb for the promise of gigantic gold yields that rarely appear. Click through the slide show to get a taste of their muddy, toxic life.

The Dutch could never make a solid profit from the gold business when Suriname was part of their colonial dominion. From what we saw, the latest generation of miners, many of them descendants of escaped slaves who made their homes in Suriname’s interior, aren’t doing a much better job. It’s not that they don’t find gold. They do. But the expenses associated with the trade—in terms of supplies and machinery— are enormous. And then there are the physical costs. Pits collapse. Ethnic clashes break out in mining towns. Mercury finds its way into everything from the groundwater to the air above the gold camps. 

But there is a sort of honor and courage in what the small-scale gold miners do, which is where the latest film in the Empire series comes in. Shot in two different mining communities in Suriname’s interior, the piece tells the story of a group of Maroon miners trying their best to eke out a living from their ancestral soil. They aren’t backed by a multi-national corporation, and they have only the most basic tools, but they show up every day to earn their living on their own terms. 

Principal photography in Suriname wrapped on May 7th, 2012.