About us
Queen Nikkolah is a new tradition initiated by Laura Nsengiyumva that has emerged in Brussels, in the anti-racist grassroots organisations network in 2017. It is now celebrated throughout Belgium and sometimes in the Netherlands. Inspired by the Sinterklaas tradition, Queen Nikkolah is an additional hybridation of the initial tradition, aiming to offer a positive image to deconstruct the inherited colonial prejudice baked into the tradition with the apparition of Zwarte Piet ( in 1850).
The objectives of the project Queen Nikkolah are:
–to co-create an inclusive folklore
Celebrate and create awareness around Afropean identities. Indulge a collective resilience of the inherited colonial trauma.
–to develop educational tools
Create and share knowledge on the origins, hybridations of the Sinterklaas tradition. Parents co-create stories, artworks and help shape the values of our new inclusive folklore.
–to empower the grassoots network
The networking around the events of QN seeks to bring solidarity and visibility for the smaller associations.
Bio
Laura Nsengiyumva (she/her) is a Brussels-based artivist, architect and researcher. Through her inter- disciplinary practice, Nsengiyumva explores themes such as diasporic experience, hidden histories, North-South relations and empathy. She speaks about these topics through images and interventions on colonial spaces. . Her artivists actions like PeoPL (the melting of a statue of Leopold II) and Queen Nikkolah, are part of her research project Shaping the presence of the African diaspora in Belgium. Her transcultural view of history is based on human stories that invite us to find what brings us together.
Nsengiyumva is affiliated as an artistic researcher to Kask, the School of Arts of HOGENT, and howest. She won the first prize at the Kunstsalon Ghent in 2011, and the second prize at the Dakar Biennale in 2012. In 2020, PeoPL entered the Flemish Art Collection.
