General view installation Vrijheid van de gast, puntWG 2022. Hugo Palmar.

Domestic Treaty (Westfagia) Installation. Geso, Acrylic, pencil, varnish on linen. 132 pieces 25 cm x 25 cm.

Hugo Palmar, 2019 – 2022.

This installation simulates a domestic wall built with pieces of crackled Delft Blauwe ceramics, on which I painted logos of Venezuelan food products. It is a nod to the tourist souvenir culture in the Dutch Caribbean, where products that appear to be local are manufactured in China or Latin America. Delft Blauwe, for example, has its roots in the appropriation of Chinese and Japanese ceramics, influenced by the commercial expeditions of the Dutch East India Company during the Dutch Golden Age. Local potters in Delft and other provinces sought to imitate products imported from China to lower costs.

For several years, Venezuela experienced the phenomenon of bachaqueo, an informal economic practice that involved reselling price-regulated products or engaging in double nationalization through smuggling. This situation made products inaccessible to local consumers due to their high price or scarcity. Faced with the lack of products on Venezuelan shelves, many citizens began to travel periodically to Aruba to make their purchases, using foreign currency regulated by the national government for tourist travel. This, in turn, generated new informalities in the island’s economy, such as the purchase and resale of products for currency exchange.

Other layers of meaning are related to the migration crisis represented by the legal and illegal diaspora of Venezuelans in the Caribbean region, especially in Aruba and Curaçao, due to their geographical proximity, the title of the piece refers to the Treaty of Westphalia, an international law agreement that established the concept of nation-states and ended the 80-year war between Spain and the Netherlands, which revolved around the distribution of land and resources in the overseas territories of the New World.