For about five years, an archive has exist­ed in Ams­ter­dam, reveal­ing that which is buried and rarely told. It makes vis­i­ble (again) erad­i­cat­ed and sup­pressed voic­es, his­to­ries, and sto­ries. Build­ing on the lega­cy of the Suri­nam-born and lat­er Ams­ter­dam-based social sci­en­tist Wal­do Heil­bron, a cen­ter for (post)colonial his­to­ry was estab­lished. From this base, hege­mon­ic and Euro-cen­tric his­to­ri­og­ra­phy is expand­ed upon with oth­er aspects, data, and facts that paint a more dif­fer­en­ti­at­ed and mul­ti-per­spec­ti­val image of glob­al devel­op­ments over the last 400 years. As a place for col­lect­ing, research­ing, medi­at­ing, and pro­duc­ing knowl­edge, The Black Archives demon­strates how his­to­ry can be ori­ent­ed dif­fer­ent­ly and, step by step, sup­ple­ment­ed and expand­ed with exact­ly those miss­ing and sup­pressed voices.

Link to Audio guide