Blackboard

For my graduation project (2008), I created Blackboard, a chalkboard that serves as a universal means of communication.
This short video shows several Africans from an area south of the Sahara. When I met these people here in the Netherlands, I noticed their feelings of being rootless. With this film I wanted to investigate to what degree these individuals deal with that fact that they are away from their home country. It tries to answer questions such as: How do they respond to the fact that they are living in a different country? And: How do they succeed in incorporating their memories from their land of origin in this new environment?
In this, Blackboard is an important link between the viewer and the subject. Not the Africans themselves, but the blackboard tells us their stories. Their tales come to life on the black surface; the words and pictures appear, are written, wiped away again and in this way they are immortalized. By watching this film, the viewer is guided through the personal journeys of these individuals. As well as being the means of telling stories, for Africans the blackboard has meaning in yet another way. In Africa, a blackboard is an important symbol for communication. Every single African learned to write their first words on the black surface of a chalkboard and therefore, they immediately respond to it. It takes their thoughts back to Africa.
This way Blackboard strengthened the subjects’ memories and feelings, made the images more powerful. In addition, Blackboard takes you, the viewer, back to your childhood memories, back to your first experiences at communication and imagination, while at the same time linking you in a very familiar way with those Africans without roots.