Eenige woorden van de Jakutsche Spraek

Leroy Berger received a grant for the development of new work. Eenige woorden van de Jakutsche Spraek is an iteration of Leroy's research on the book Noord en Oost Tartarye, written by a Dutch statesman and Amsterdam’s mayor Nicolaes Witsen and published in 1690. This book is noted as the first time many indigenous languages from North and Central Asia were recorded in written form, including Sakha (Yakut) language — the language Leroy, as an indigenous Sakha, heard all around him as a child but was never taught. Now, as an immigrant living in the Netherlands, Leroy attempts to look and examine the oddity that is the page containing Sakha and Dutch words, drawing parallels with his lived experience and turning this piece of history into a monument.

Leroy is a multidisciplinary artist and designer from Sakha Republic, an indigenous land in North Asia. Working with language, memory, archives, folklore and cultural traditions, Leroy weaves images and occurrences together, trying to document a space where political becomes personal, and the ways oppression and discrimination affects day-to-day life, domestic affairs and small habits.