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Gilleam invites us to look differently. His images offer a Caribbean rarely shown. Yes, there is sun, sea and sand. But there's also a rich history of colonialism, and a big influence from mass tourism nowadays. Gilleam challenges the stereotypes. He honours, questions and reclaims his island of Curaçao from flat representations.
Gilleam Trapenberg (1991) zooms in on the many paradoxes that are present in the sociocultural landscape of the Carribean. With his camera, he challenges the stereotyping and cultural misinformation in the representation of Caribbean life by the dominant (Western) media. While Trapenberg is, at the times, also seduced by the picturesque qualities of Curaçao, the focus of his work are the realities of the colonial legacy, and the endless flow of goods and people, in relation to the islands' mass tourism.
A graduate of The Hague's Royal Academy of Art, Trapenberg first moved to the Netherlands at 19 years old. In the years since, his works have been exhibited at institutions such as Foam Photography Museum, Stedelijk Museum, Fotografiska Stockholm and Shanghai Center of Photography.
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