Rough Diamonds/ Ruwe Diamanten | exhibition in Nieuwendam

Accompanying the story-newspaper De Nieuwendammer on the 30st of april there was an opening of the exhibition Ruwe Diamanten: revealing the soul of Nieuwendam through the stories of some of their inhabitants. Fotos by the amazing Eddy Bosland. Stories and initiative by Lies Aris/ Storyshop. Graphic design by Superearth.

Storyline: sculpture of books & book cover poem

Winterwesterpark

Fireworks yeah

Rough Diamonds from the North

The project of searching for stories in the Nieuwendam borough in Amsterdam North came to an end in the form of an exhibition entitled Rough Diamonds. Together with photographer Ed Bosland, I strolled across the streets of Nieuwendam for months in search of some hidden glitters, to dust of and show. We found that behind every door, window, garden fence, there were special people and stories tucked away. We made a newspaper 'De Nieuwendammer' and the expo 'Ruwe Diamanten', which was a storytelling exhibition with pictures, windowstories and a statue made of garbage books from Nieuwendam that revealed a poem by its book covers.

Read the paper here!

Monument for lost stories

What role do books still have? Are we going to read our children books in bed or will we read/ play our I-pads. Will books become like Vinyl towards Ipods/ mp3's. I found out ONLY in one 'recycle store' in the North f Amsterdam, already once a week 5 big blue containers with books get send to the paper demolisher. Cause nobody wants them. All these stories lost, turned into little pieces of paper, burned, destroyed. I am currently constructing an iglo of books as a monument for lost stories. I'll post it when ready...

Eavesdropping stories in Nieuwendam

As of now I am starting to spend some time as an artist/ writer in residence in Modestraat, Nieuwendam (North of Amsterdam). In this part of the city some 'broedstraten' (art breeding streets) are being set up. The plan is I walk around the streets as a shadow, eavesdropping typical Nieuwendam stories, meeting Nieuwendammers, possibly writing their biographies. Heck i might even search for the modern day myth of Nieuwendam and visualize it. The actual result will develop itself the coming months.

Nieuwendam is a very interesting neighbourhood, where some inhabtitants were born, raised and stayed there their whole life, some inhabitants are very new, not only to Nieuwendam but to the whole continent of Europe. Houses differ enormously: very old Dutch working class small and social housing projects, are combined with huge flats, and a dike with old traditional Dutch houses that were turned in million euro projects. There is lots of greenery, there are public sports installations in the street where grannies do their work-out, you can get your snacks at the supermarket or toko, there are lots of people who walk their pitbull while driving a scooter, there is an occaional stabbing in the streets (drugs, jealousy, crime), there are lots of singing birds, there are many enthousiastic children, there are elderly grey disappointed people, but also elderly gay happy people. I plan to hang around eavesdropping. And hope to hear Nieuwendam's stories and present them to you in a way that does them justice.