NOTES AND ARTEFACTS FROM ALTARED FUTURES

Notes & Artefacts from altared futures - Temporarily closed for healing
The project is based on the research on portable artefacts that have moved between cultures and continents following the transatlantic slave trade between West Africa and the Americas. The project focuses on altars and talismans made of textiles, discarded materials, and natural elements to explore the connection between craft and spirituality.
The artefacts are activated by the performer James Notin @eclipsepoet in a suspended atmosphere, halfway between documentation and dream. The short film narrates a silent relationship between body and matter, between memory and nature: a slow choreography in which the artefacts become emotional extensions of the spirituality of the protagonist. In an immersive soundscape in collaboration with EMÆNUEL @princeofvanity. The video is part of an interactive multidisciplinary installation presented as part of the Open Studios at Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht in October 2025.
The project is accompanied by a publication in collaboration with Dylan Fragnière @dada_okafor , available to purchase with an in-depth research as a poetic and critical reflection on the relationship between spirituality, materials, craft, and decoloniality, developed through an experience that is at once artistic, anthropological, and personal. Exploring how material practices — from textile work to waste recycling — become acts of resistance, memory, and healing.
The Fashion and Textiles Materials fellowship is part of the Future Materials Bank at Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht (NL). In collaboration with the Research Collective for Decoloniality & Fashion (RCDF)  and the Maastricht Institute of Arts (Zuyd Hogeschool).

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