A photographer of magic realism and artistic researcher from the Caribbean, specialized in directing and producing visual concepts for film and photographic production.

Lisandro Suriel earned his Bachelor’s degree in Photography at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and  received his Master’s of Art by research in Artistic Research and Art Studies at the University of Amsterdam. As part of his Master’s thesis he analyzed early twentieth century illustrations of West-Indian mythology in relation to cultural aphasia. This research forms the foundation of his ongoing artistic project Ghost Island.

By visually deconstructing New World-imagination, Ghost Island explores the spectral identity of our ancestors throughout the Black Atlantic. Ghost Island also stands for Suriel's own insular background in Saint Martin, and connotes the New World-condition of complex overlapping histories, hauntology, and immateriality. He proposes that the imaginative lens is arguably the best with which to view how folkloric figures act as an agent in history and animate cultural memory. Lisandro Suriel seeks to employ The West Indies’ own unwritten vestiges of an intelligent imagination imbedded in landscape, architecture, and people to generate imaginative linkages to a political past and social identity.

For more information on Lisandro Suriel's work, to get in touch regarding commission, or to just say hello, 

feel free to send an e-mail


Tilting Axis Collections and Commissioning Fellow 

On May 29th, 2019 at the Tilting Axis 5 Conference in Guadeloupe, Beyond Trends: Decolonisation and Art Criticism it was announced that Lisandro Suriel would be the new Fellow 2019/2020 for the Collections and Commissioning Fellowship in Scotland. Tilting Axis is an endeavour pivoting on a Caribbean axis for a creative and academic ecology of art and culture. It is a collaboration between -among others- Mother Tongue in Scotland and London, The Fresh Milk Art Platform in Barbados, The National Art Gallery of The Bahamas, and the British Council. The Scottish partners for the fellowship are: British Council Arts, LUX Scotland, The Glasgow School of Art, Hospitalfield, and the University of St Andrews Dept. Of Art History &MT.  (photo courtesy of Tilting Axis)

Lectures & Workshops

Lisandro Suriel is also available for lectures and workshops upon request.  His current lecture series Ghost Island: Exploring Decolonial Imagination posits theBlack imagination as a device for reconfiguring collective memory andreclaiming histories.  While his workshop Jumbee Stories is an experimental platform developed for communities of the African Diaspora to engage with ancestral memory and Blackimagination. For more information regarding lectures,workshops, and artist talks please send an e-mail

Lectures:

Universidade Federal do Recôncavo da Bahia (Brazil), University of St Andrews (Scotland), Southern University at New Orleans (USA), Ghent University (Belgium), Glasgow School of Art's Race Rights and Sovereignty Series(Scotland), Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam (Netherlands), Café Chercher (Netherlands)

Workshops:

Centre for Contemporary Arts (Scotland)

Writing

Black and the Mystery of Salty Water - a short story for MARCH issue 2: Black Ecologies 2021

La Belle Creole: TheShape-Shifter of The Atlantic  - a short story of magic realism in issue 4 of PREE: an online magazine for  new contemporary writing from and about the Caribbean.

Phantasmagoria: The  Realms of The Black Imagination - a fellowship report and position paper for Tilting  Axis Collections and Commissioning Fellowship 2019


Lisandro Suriel’s ongoing artistic research project Ghost Island has been made possible by The United Nations Decade Fund (VN Decennium Fonds op Naam), Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds, and The Mondriaan Fund. The Ghost Island short film has been made in partnership with Human Rights Watch.

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