“A Bigger Story”. The poetics of relation in the art and performance of Hew Locke and Raoul de Jong

This contribution argues that a critical re-evaluation of Dutch colonial history requires a fundamental structural change in institutional epistemologies, moving beyond a simple methodological shift. By examining the transnational artistic and literary practices of Guyanese-British artist Hew Locke and Surinamese-Dutch writer Raoul de Jong, this paper demonstrates how their creative work forges a new “poetics of relation” to confront and dismantle imperial ways of thinking. Through a transdisciplinary analysis, the study compares Locke’s use of a “Black Baroque” aesthetic—which employs abundance and excess to recontextualize colonial symbols—with De Jong’s performative writing and resistance to literary categorization. The analysis reveals how both artists actively embody a logic that subverts the traditional separation of past and present, challenging established frameworks and foregrounding the knowledge held within ancestral memories and lived experiences. Locke and De Jong share a mode which is not merely a critique of colonialism but an act of re-creation, offering a path towards a language of human connection that transcends national borders.