Woven freedom

Join us at the Allard Pierson on 5 May to celebrate freedom. Pick up a tin of Freedom Soup to take away, or stay and share a bowl during our special table programme, hosted in partnership with VOX-POP and SPUI25. The programme explores freedom and resistance as a lived, passed-on practice from Surinamese and Caribbean perspectives. It features poetry, a lunchtime talk on the Surinamica collection, and a collective embroidery workshop inspired by Maroon resistance.

This programme stems from the exhibition Not My Soul, which centres the stories of enslaved people. Individuals whose freedom was stripped away, yet who, against all odds, preserved their humanity through work, creativity, care, language, love, and resistance. This Liberation Day, we invite you to engage with, listen to, and re-examine this shared history.

Programme overview

• 11.00–16.00 | Freedom Soup pick-up point and an opportunity to eat together
• 12.00–12.15 | Reading by poet Bernice Vreedzaam
  For this occasion she will write and perform a poem during the Freedom Lunch.
• 13.00–13.30 | Lunchtime talk by Isabelle Best, Curator of Surinamica
  An exploration of the pursuit of freedom through the archaeological and Surinamica collections.
• 14.00–15.00 | Stitching Freedom: a collective embroidery workshop inspired by Maroon resistance, led by Suelae Robinson: Participants are invited to create a collective patchwork inspired by the resistance of the Surinamese Maroons and their own lived experiences of freedom.

Entrance

Admission to the programme is included with your museum entry ticket.

Uva podia

This programme is organised by UvA-podia and is a collaboration between VOX-POP, SPUI25, and Allard Pierson. In the University Quarter, the UvA-podia Allard Pierson, SPUI25, University Library, and VOX-POP coordinate activities and events throughout the year that are accessible to a broad audience.