Samuel Baidoo

Plum Road Tea Dream is a multiformat project by Antwerp-based artist Samuel Baidoo (1992, Belgium) and collaborators, which takes on various shapes: a video game, a performance and an exhibition. Reflecting on their experience as a queer person of color, Samuel transforms their pain, joy and grief into game lore.

They created the avatar ‘S.’ whose memories and safe havens you may visit.
Each space becomes a sanctuary where visitors, players and audience members are invited to slow down and wander, diving deeper into S.’s psyche. Wandering and encountering becomes an archeological process of grief, healing and gaming. Levels, graphic styles and tones shift as one explores deeper into this world, and in the process, ourselves. This wandering is both analog and virtual, switching between the in-game environments and out-of-game sculptures, images and texts.

Plum Road Tea Dream evolves the videogame and its association to violence and imperialism to reappropriate its form and center its experience on connection, introspection, and healing. Using the video game as a way to connect the individual and the societal.

During their time at MORPHO, Samuel will work on the development of 'The Unbuilding', an overworld from where a player can reach the different virtual sanctuaries. Part of the work at MORPHO will be to research - technically and artistically - the potential of this overworld as a hub for queer and/or people of color to hang out and chat with each other virtually.

Samuel received their MFA at Sint-Lucas Antwerp as well as a bachelor's degree in Dance at the Royal Conservatory Antwerp. They are also part of Hanafubuki, an art collective that centers around cross-disciplinary and collaborative work.