Telephone numbers of story-tellers from Curaçao

Nancy’s Web

Nancy’s Web will be a performative sound work, taking place in the many rooms of an 18th century villa on Curaçao, a small island in the Caribbean Sea, just north of Venezuela and a former Dutch colony. The work consists of stories, partly from the here and now, partly set around the time of the Jewish family who built the villa (in the last quarter of the 18th century, Napoleonic times).

The project exists within real people that tell real stories. The stories are connected through the inhabitants, users, visitors and neighbours of an 18th century villa on Curacao. The villa is situated in the former Jewish Quarter, once very upper class, presently partly a “dead” office area (banks, consulates, the National Archive) and partly run-down, with lively but mostly illegal activities. The new Instituto Buena Bista, Curaçao Center for Contemporary Art, will be moving in to this villa in March 2007. The work is made in collaboration with a group of local students of the Instituto Buena Bista (IBB - www.institutobuenabista.org). The language is Papiamentu, as well as Dutch and English (all spoken on the island of Curaçao).

The inspiration in fact was Papiamentu, the creole language of the Dutch Antilles, which for a long time was purely a spoken language (papia = to chatter, speak). It is written as phonetic Spanish and has a strong oral history. Most known are the Nanzi stories, a trickster spider who always has to fight a stronger enemy with his wits; stories which have their roots in Africa and are also found in South America and the US. In the time the villa was built, Papiamentu was widely used but hardly existed in printed form. The oldest document in Papiamentu, from 1775, is a love letter from a Curaçaoan Jew to his wife.

On sale in EdlA gallery is a list of Curaçaoan mobile phone numbers, belonging to the people who will be telling the stories. New numbers may be added, some may expire. At least, a selection of the numbers will be active until july 2007.

Prices:
- a list with a minimum of seven Curaçaoan mobile phone numbers of local storytellers (edition of 5): € 500;
- a random single phone number (edition of 10): € 50.

Nancy's Web - Rules of the Game

1) Calling costs are not included. No extra costs are charged, you pay what your provider charges you for calling a mobile number on Curaçao/ Dutch Antilles.

2) Each edition number comes with a unique password. Your password only works once with every storyteller: when a call has been made succesfully, the password will not be accepted by the same storyteller again.

3) Please phone between 14 pm and 12 am (with regards to the 5 hour time difference; Curaçao is 5 hours behind.)

4) Please respect when the storyteller asks you to call back later or when he/she puts an end to the story.

Danielle van Zuijlen, February 2007

About IBB: www.institutobuenabista.org