Dè Wata Kisi mi

In 2016, I spent two months in Botopasi, a village in Suriname’s interior. There, I created the photo series Dè Wata Kisi mi, which literally means “the dry water grabs/kills me” and is loosely translated as “I’m thirsty.” Through these photos, featuring Tupperware, I challenge the romanticized view of life in untouched nature.

The idea for this series arose in 2012, when I was a tourist in the village of Pingpe. Conversations with other tourists made me aware of our assumptions. By revealing local, self-generated beauty—separate from Western notions of “authenticity”—I seek to question these assumptions.