In ‘Further than Hip Hop’, narratives become intertwined and perspectives shift. The performing artists are filmed in Arminius, a Rotterdam debate centre housed in a former church, breathing a glorious past. This footage is interwoven with 19th-century archival material showing Dutch missionaries in colonised Indonesia. Through this juxtaposition Xausa’s film makes painfully clear how colonialism –once legitimised by the bible and a narrative of salvation, but practiced through domination and exploitation– still has a deep impact. Who we are, our identity –-individual and collective– is formed by our history and ancestry, but also actively and continuously shaped in the present. In the film, the performers articulate their stories from personal experience.
