Raziel Perin

tekenen, spiritualiteit, schilderen, Lichaam, installatie, Globalisering, Geschiedenis, Experimenteel, Educatie, Diversiteit, Diaspora, Dekolonisatie, collage, beeldhouwen, Artistiek onderzoek

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My practice explores the resilience of Afro-diasporic spiritualities in the Caribbean and their transformation within the Caribbean diaspora in Europe. This investigation is rooted in my experience of migration and my search for identity.

When I migrated to Italy with my mother at the age of 4, she became my only connection to my roots through her food, religious practices, and stories. Her presence embodied a world I felt both close to and distant from. My work seeks to expand beyond this personal link, creating a microcosm that reflects the complexities of my identity, shaped by dualities: belonging and displacement, memory and forgetting.
I am particularly drawn to how Caribbean spiritualities evolve in the diaspora, reshaped by their new environments while retaining their essence. This mirrors my own experience of navigating disconnection and connection, fragmentation and wholeness. These transformations reflect the broader processes of cultural survival and reinvention, where traditions adapt to new contexts and remain a source of identity and strength.
A key part of my practice is grappling with the silences and gaps in my family’s history. Rather than resolving these absences, I aim to inhabit them, transforming voids into spaces of reflection and creation.
Since I was 12, I have kept diaries that serve as the foundation of my creative process. These journals document thoughts, emotions, and fragments of memory, which I translate into installations, drawings, sculptures, and performances. Each work is a material response to an inner process, reflecting my exploration of identity and the unresolved tensions of my heritage.

Through my practice, I examine how cultural and spiritual traditions persist and evolve across displacement. At the same time, I aim to create spaces where fragmented histories and identities can coexist, inviting audiences to reflect on the themes of belonging, memory, and cultural transformation.

**Mami (2022), Feeding my Ancestors (series)** - «In the Yoruba culture, and in many other American Afrodiasporic cultures, the female deities who protect and support men and women are called Yabas, from Iya: mother. Ancient knowledge has nestled in the matrilineal wombs of many Africans for millennia. The Iyami are the dreaded and revered ancestral mothers. Iyalorisa are the women in charge of the Ile Axé, the sacred temples of African religions in Brazil. Iya, the mother, is the term anyone would use to address an older woman, who may not have given birth to you, but who, respecting and carrying on traditions, takes care of the community as she would a child and, by doing so, every day she gives birth to the future. Female deities embody every aspect of femininity: impetus, wisdom, procreation, sensuality, abundance, courage and lightness. The women and men who worship them, honor and respect every aspect related to them. Mami Wata, the Vodun who holds the snake on her shoulders is among the most revered in West Africa, and like Yemoja (from the Yoruba, the mother whose children are fish), she followed her people on the infamous route of slavery; thanks to them their human sons and daughters clung to life and found a way to rebuild another one beyond the Calunga Grande (the Atlantic Ocean). Because as Iya they protected them. Because in the womb of women, like a precious stone, the secret of life is kept.» - Simao Amista, researcher and American afro-diasporic religions expert catalog text for A Tale of Tamarindo, MA*GA, Gallarate (Italy)

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