Jeannette Ehlers & S.W.

CAST ON WATER: Eulogies to Sisterhood Across the African Diaspora

My uncle once told me that my father would swim out to a small island from time to time. Often he would spend whole days, even nights out there, alone, surrounded by the Caribbean deep blue. What did he study in the waves, ripples and foam of the sea as it slowly ate away the shore? What caught his attention? Was it past cries swallowed by the sea? Or maybe future calls whispered on the horizon? What was he searching for out there? Did he ever find it?

”Dear Jeannette, You don’t know me, but I believe we may be related. I think we share the same father. My name is S.W, and I am a dance choreographer. I discovered your artwork online and was immediately drawn to it.

Dear sister, wow! this is quite unexpected! What a fabulous surprise! For so long, I have been wondering how to find you, but I had no idea where to begin. I was aware of your existence, but I had no name or location to go on. I am overjoyed to finally be able to connect with you. I would love to get acquainted. How can we meet? “

Two sisters who had never met, and who lived on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, were able to connect through their mutual love of art. The sisters’ artistic pursuits allowed them to find common ground, enabling them to communicate through their art and express ideas and emotions that might have been difficult to convey otherwise. Through artistic interpretation and taking turns in instructing one another, they were able to forge a meaningful bond. Dance and visual arts form the basis of CAST ON WATER: Eulogies to Sisterhood Across the African Diaspora.

The legacy of the Middle Passage includes the loss of family connections, as parents, children and siblings were torn apart and sold into slavery. This separation created a sense of loss and longing that has persisted for centuries. Yet despite this, the bond of sisterhood has remained strong, as women have found ways to connect and support one another across time and space.

CAST ON WATER: Eulogies to Sisterhood Across the African Diaspora uses the power of art to connect and is a bond between women that transcends time and distance. It is a connection that is strengthened by shared experiences, both joyful and painful.

Jeannette Ehlers is a Copenhagen-based artist of Danish and Trinidadian descent whose practice takes shape experimentally across photography, video, installation, sculpture and performance. She graduated from The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in 2006.

Ehlers’ work often makes use of self-representation and image manipulation to bring about decolonial hauntings and disruptions. These manifestations attend to the material and affective afterlives of Denmark’s colonial impact in the Caribbean and participation in the Transatlantic Slave Trade—realities that have all too often been rendered forgettable by dominant history-writing.

Ehlers insists on the possibility for empowerment and healing in her art, honoring legacies of resistance in the African diaspora. She merges the historical, the collective and the rebellious with the familial, the bodily and the poetic. She has exhibited internationally and was shortlisted to create a national monument to The Windrush Generation at London Waterloo Station 2021 as well as for the decolonial monument in Braunschweig Germany 2022/2023. She is the co-creator of the public sculpture project I Am Queen Mary, 2018.

S.W, a graduate of NYU Tisch School of the Arts, is originally from the UK. She served as Chair of the jazz department at The Ailey School at the Joan Weill Center for Dance (NYC), and on faculty 1992 - 2021. She was a member of The Ailey School/ PPAS Dance Programme, and its Administrative Coordinator 1998-2000. Currently, she serves on the Advisory Board of DOTL (Montclair, NJ), Artistic Liaison for IPSOD (Orlando, FL.), and was selected by Academic Keys: Who’s Who In Fine Arts Higher Education (December 2017). In addition, is also included in “Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers” editions 8-12. S.W was a Visiting Professor of Dance 2005-20022 at Hope College in Holland, Michigan, where she taught Modern and Jazz Dance, while choreographing for dance concerts, H2 Dance Company and Strike Time Dance Theatre. Incidentally, her choreographed works have been performed nationally and internationally by dance companies, theatre schools and universities.

Choreography S.W.

Performer Jeannette Ehlers

Sound Trevor Mathison (voice material from Zoom conversation between S.W. and Jeannette Ehlers)

Videographers Sara Jordan, Christian Brems

Hair Beilul Arefaine

Concept Jeannette Ehlers

Assistance Mai Takawira