ROTTERDAM.- At the Nieuwe Instituut, the Netherlands’ national museum and institute for architecture, design and digital culture in Rotterdam, Another Island is now on show. This film installation by Rotterdam-based researcher and audio visual artist Janilda Bartolomeu, offers a personal and poetic reflection on the shared heritage and potential future of the Cape Verdean archipelago and its diaspora communities in Rotterdam and Dakar (Senegal).

Janilda Bartolomeu was born in Cape Verde and has spent years researching the undocumented history of the Cape Verdean diaspora. Her work led to the 2020 film The Eleventh Island: Activating Silent Histories through Video. Since the 1960s, Rotterdam has been home to one of the largest Cape Verdean communities outside the Cape Verdean archipelago, earning the city the title of ‘the eleventh island’.

For the next phase of her research project, the Nieuwe Instituut and local organisation RAW Material Company invited Bartolomeu to undertake a residency in Dakar, Senegal. This spring, she researched the largely unknown history of Cape Verdean migrants in Dakar, and interviewed members of the Cape Verdean community in the city. The stories she collected there form the basis of the film Another Island: As We Surrender to the Tides.

The installation

As Cape Verde celebrates its fifty years of independence in 2025, Bartolomeu reflects on the past half-century and anticipates the next half-century with the installation at the Nieuwe Instituut. She finds an embodiment of the unique Cape Verdean imagination in the figure of San Jon (Saint John the Baptist).

Another Island explores four aspects of the folklore surrounding San Jon in Cape Verde. Historical, social and cultural meanings intertwine in an associative way. This creates space for visions of the future based on notions of survival, togetherness, and the inner world of outsiders and their dreams.

Another Island is on show at the Nieuwe Instituut until 3 May 2026. Janilda Bartolomeu’s work has been made possible with support from the Creative Industries Fund NL, the Amarte Foundation, and the City of Rotterdam.