The exhibition Marronnage, l’art de briser ses chaînes presents several ethnographic and cartographic missions from the 20th century in French Guiana and Suriname, and places them in dialogue with the works and statements of contemporary artists and photographers from Guiana and Suriname.

Through a wide selection of objects and artworks, Marronnage, l’art de briser ses chaînes reveals the vitality and diversity of the Maroon arts, while raising public awareness of an aesthetic that reinvents itself and plays with categories: heritage/creation, art/crafts, primitive art/contemporary art, etc.

The exhibition was curated by Geneviève Wiels and Thomas Mouzard and shown at the Maison de l'Amérique latine, Paris, in 2022.

Graphic design and signage by Arthur Calame (@Calame.bureau), using the custom designed Maroni together with the upcoming WS Kateka by Raphaël de La Morinerie. The subtitle is set in caps from Kris Sowersby’s Founders Grotesk. Scenography by David des Moutis.

Cassava Kitchen is the first company of a proud Surinamese entrepreneur. The company distributes pasta and other products with cassava at their core. The founder and we agreed: the brand should put cassava at the forefront but be imbued with her heritage and reflect her vivid personality.

We selected the typeface Slang for the logotype because it so beautifully reflects the shape of cassava roots and leaves. Poppins was chosen as a compliment because of its playful contrast in some characters at heavier weights and its clean geometric forms.

Homages to the founder's heritage can be found throughout the brand elements—from the colors which are a slight departure from those of the Suriname flag to the bold pattern which evokes the patterns of a traditional kotomisi dress.

It is not quite clear when the logo of Surinam Airways was introduced, let alone who designed it (please chime in if you have any insights), but chances are it coincided with the appointment of the carrier as the national airline of the Republic of Suriname, on the occasion of the country’s independence from The Netherlands in 1975.

On November 2nd, 1975 the proud free bird of Surinam Airways roared into the sky, using a leased KLM DC-8/63 in Surinam Airways bright colors and completely manned by SLM crew Surinam proved itself able to stand on its own feet in the aviation field. — SLM

The typeface is Cut-In Bold, used in all caps. Designed by Maurice Schlesinger at his Sydney-based studio Graphic Concept in the late 1960s or early 1970s, Cut-In was produced as dry-transfer type by Letraset. It came in two weights, featuring lots of alternates — note how the first ‘S’ in the logo is different from the second. Unfortunately, Cut-In didn’t make the transition to digital. Schlesinger himself created a digital reinterpretation as Bauhaus Rounded, but that happened only in 2011, years after Letraset sheets went out of fashion, and it wasn’t explicitly marketed as a revival of Cut-In. To make things worse, the local publisher he went with, Font Factory, vanished from the scene soon after. Others have created unauthorized digitizations and made them freely available, but these cover the lighter Medium weight only, and don’t include the many original alternates.

The classic logo from the Letraset days is still in use today. However, as Cut-In Bold is unavailable, Surinam Airways had to emulate the style for additional applications by using another rounded sans serif. The website features a version of VAG Rounded. The logo of its subsidiary Surair AirCargo Services uses Arial Rounded with a thrown-in “lazy S”, painfully acknowledging the lost brand value of Cut-In.

Sign in The Hague

The Surinam Airways logo with the slogan in Arial Black: Flying on trusted wings … of a pterosaur?

The Surinam Airways website uses a version of VAG Rounded.

Surair AirCargo Services uses Arial Rounded, with the ‘S’ substituted by the “lazy S” as seen in Cut-In.