Lonnie Holley at the Stedelijk Museum

Tomorrow Is A Different Day, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Lonnie Holley's film, I Snuck Off the Slave Ship (2019), is currently on view at the Stedelijk Museum, having recently been acquired by the museum. The work forms part of the exhibition Tomorrow Is a Different Day, which spotlights art and design from the Stedelijk collection, from 1980 to the present, by international artists and designers who are helping to shape the changes of today and tomorrow.

In his directorial debut, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, many of Holley’s artistic activities over the past decades flow into one another. Set to an improvised, visceral score performed by Holley, the film is shot in the artist’s home state of Georgia, constructed from real and reenacted vignettes of his life. Using technology of his own design, Holley transgresses reality with his imagination. Temporal talismans guide him through the fragmented phenomena of the Black American experience, liberating past versions of himself from irreversible events and societal paradigms. Mirroring the film's atmosphere of spiritual transcendence, the work is exhibited within a sculptural environment comprising hand-carved salvaged church pews and suspended wire sculptures.

Lonnie Holley, I Snuck Off the Slave Ship, installation views, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 2026. © CJ van Rooij. Courtesy Stedelijk and Edel Assanti.