In 1985 black women in the Netherlands felt the need to separate themselves from the white feminist struggle, with which they could not identify. They founded their own organization called Flamboyant. These black women had to face daily realities of racism and sexism which were neglected by most of the white feminist.

This became painfully at the surface during a conference on women history which took place in 1984 in Nijmegen. Women of color were totally ignored and therefor walked away from the conference. Within one week they organized their own conference which was the start of an important black feminist wave. The women of color united and named themselves “zmv women” (acronym of the Dutch words black, migrant and refugee).

Nine ZMV women  are portrayed under the title Proud Rebels (Rebelse Trots) as an homage to this early black emancipatory movement. The final result is made through embroidery with colored beads and pearls, executed by black women from Senegal to support them financially. And a short video

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The portrayed women are: Gloria Wekker,

Philomena Essed , Ernestine Comvalius, Julia da Lima, Mercedes Zandwijken, Cisca Pattipilohy, Alem Desta, Mavis Carrilho en Hellen Gill