In his works, Vulsma shines a light on the Netherlands’ slave past. He explores the logistical mechanism behind the slave trade around the Atlantic Ocean, based on the financial accounts of the Middelburg Commercial Company (MCC), an 18th-century slave trading company, which are preserved in the Zeeland Archives. Guinea refers to ‘Guinea cloth’, a cotton fabric that was produced in India and then shipped to Europe to be re-exported by slave traders to Guinea on Africa’s west coast. Guinea consists of Jacquard-woven fabrics that derive from digitised logbook data that was converted into weaving patterns. The translation of the binary data into the woven fabric is so precise that the fabric can be regarded as a form of data storage.
Vulsma experimented with ways to translate binary data from digitised historical documents into bindings in the weave. He also created irregularity in the weave, which can be seen, for example, in the loose weft threads.
Based in Amsterdam and Berlin, Vulsma (1982) studied at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy and De Ateliers in Amsterdam. His work explores the tensions between autonomous art and the socio-political relations underlying its production. He has taken part in various group exhibitions and has had solo exhibitions in, among others, the former Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam.
