A Website That Brings The History Of Curaçao To Life Is Now Live!

A website titled “100 Opheto (100 Objects),” which displays 100 gathered objects that carry stories that portray the history of Curaçao from a communal perspective, was recently placed online.

This website is the culmination of a project that was first unveiled to the public in October 2021 as an exhibition during the 2021 Dutch Design Week (DDW) hosted by the Dutch city of Eindhoven. The DDW is the largest annual design event in Northern Europe, presenting the work and concepts of over 2,600 designers to over 355,000 visitors from the Netherlands and abroad. And the 100 Opheto exhibition proved to be a resounding success with the visiting public at the DDW, which led to an exhibition at the Curaçao Museum in February of this year.

Cleo de Brabander (creative director) and Hòfi Wawuya co-founder, Joeri Oltheten (initiator and project manager), spearheaded this project, which they tackled with a team of professionals that consisted of David van Delden (digital producer), Martijn Brugman (historian and writer), Fardy Lodowica (audio producer), and Ton Verkuijlen (photographer).

In their own words: “Over time, many diverse memories and experiences become attached to the objects with which we surround ourselves. These objects thus transcend their initial functions. They absorb their own history, their own narrative, connect us with others, with a certain place, with times gone by. In this way, a simple object can become a relic that answers the questions of our origins, and of who we are.”

The 100 Opheto objects were collected during a series of free workshops held at the Curaçao Museum. Among examples of the communal items the organizers were looking for were those that tell stories like “the instrument that Grandpa brought along from Cuba after he went to work in the sugarcane plantation” or “the jersey of your cousin who went to play football in the Netherlands.”

You can view all the objects, their stories, and more by clicking here!