Sunni Lamin Barrow

You’ve Been Needing Sadness is Sunni Lamin Barrow’s latest research, an evocative dive into the depths of grief and embodiment. In the showing of this first draft, Sunni conjures poetry to navigate the unspoken, a bodily intrusion, a “thing” that remains unnamed yet ever present.

Through a dynamic and interplay of spoken word poetry, movement, and sound, this theatrical fragment unfolds like an ocean, rising, crashing, probing, and ultimately pulling the audience into its relentless currents. The work probes the fragility of language and the power of emotion, exposing how both can reshape the body and soul. 

While the work vividly portrays the intrusion upon the body, it also reflects how one is conditioned to sit with gratitude even while enduring the pain this “thing” introduces. An invitation confronting the contradictions of what haunts, heals, and reshapes our very being. At its backbone, Sunni’s exploration confronts the paradox of survival and loss, questioning: “Why does the very thing that rescues me reduce me to nothing?”

Maker and performer: Sunni Lamin Barrow
Co-creator and performer: Elsemarijn Hijweege
Sound designer: binnenkort bekend
Photographer: Badrr Ezzat

Sunni Lamin Barrow (1998) is a celebrated pluridisciplinary artist from The Gambia, now based in the Netherlands, whose award-winning work explores identity, belonging, and resilience. Sunni highlights the nuanced experiences of African queer refugees, addressing themes such as love, loneliness, queerness, blackness, and kinship within a global context.

His art has been showcased at prominent venues like the Van Gogh Museum, Kunsthal Rotterdam, and Het Nationale Theater, among others. In 2023, Sunni debuted A Fist of Tongues, a spoken word theater performance praised as one of the most compelling productions of the Dutch theater season. This work, which earned a BNG Bank Theater Prize nomination, stages a visceral dialogue between his multiple selves, confronting past trauma and envisioning a hopeful future.

Currently pursuing a Master’s at Das Theater in Amsterdam, Sunni is developing Spoken Word Theater as a distinct genre, blending raw emotionality with theatrical structure, and building a lasting legacy that bridges personal narrative with universal truth.

@tha_rainx
https://laminbarrow.nl/