Things to Remember (Page Not Found)

trPrice € 9,-

The exhibition Things to Remember (Page Not Found) took place in March 2016 in Castrum Peregrini. It questioned how digital media, endless storage space and new ways of communicating shape the way we capture, share and retrieve our personal memories. This publication serves as a reminder of the exhibition while also sharing some of the outcomes of the public programme, including thoughts about the value of forgetting and the dissident power of melancholia.  With contributions by Bas Groes and Sands-Murry Wassink, interviews with artist Amie Dicke and filmmaker Antoine Viviani. The designer of the publication is Dayna Casey, the curator was Radna Rumping.trpnf2

Virtual tour

[pano file=”https://h401.org/wp-content/panoramas/gisele-vtour-w8000/gisele-vtour-w8000.html” width=”100%” height=”400″]

This is a virtual visit to Gisèle’s studio in which she worked the last 30 years of her life. It shows the state in which she had left it. Today it is used for the cultural programme of the Castrum Peregrini – Memory Machine, for contemporary exhibitions, lectures, performances.

Kunsttarot – De Kaarten van Gisèle

Het kunstenaarscollectief DE PARASIET  maakte een selectie uit de vele objecten uit het atelier van Gisèle (1912-2013) en schreven er telkens een korte tekst bij die tezamen een serie serieuze, wonderlijke, wijze en ludieke levenslessen vormen in hun nieuwste KUNSTTAROT – De Kaarten van Gisèle die nu i.s.m. Castrum Peregrini wordt gepubliceerd.

Bestel dit bijzondere Kunsttarot nu via productie@castrumperegrini.nl – De Kaarten van Gisèle € 16,95 excl. porto kosten

Het Kunsttarot – De Kaarten van Gisèle wordt in een beperkte oplage geproduceerd.

Het Kunsttarot – De Kaarten van Gisèle in de media:

 

Critically Committed Pedagogies – Amber Coomans

Critically Committed Pedagogies, #2

A recap of  a semi-public seminar

by Amber Coomans

March the 10th is a vibrant day in Castrum Peregrini. Together with Dr. Esther Peeren, (University of Amsterdam, ASCA and Amsterdam Centre for Globalisation Studies), Professor Peter Kraftl (University of Birmingham), Jack Halberstam (Professor of Gender Studies and English at Columbia University) and the moderators Renee Turner and Frans-Willem Korsten, the students of the Piet Zwart Institute and many other guests immerse themselves in “critically committed pedagogies.” Although the word critical may sound as a cliché, Frans-Willem Korstens states, together with the word committed, it’s exactly what this seminar is about.

Esther Peeren

The seminar begins with Dr. Esther Peeren talking about where we teach and how the spaces in which we teach influence learning. She’s inspired by philosopher Michail Bachtin and his so-called chronotopes: intrinsic connectedness of temporal and spatial relationships that are artistically exposed in literature. There is the chronotope of the adventure novel, in which the main character always forgets the things he has learned in the previous episodes and is constantly surprised by everything. In this world learning is not possible. Another example is the chronotope of the Road, in which meeting new people from different backgrounds is central. Bachtin states that these chronotopes also exist in the real world.

The chronotope of the Salon is the place where dialogues can happen and where there is a more dialogic and interactive atmosphere. Perhaps this is an example of what a classroom should look like?

What does it mean to have this seminar at Castrum Peregrini? You could see the former WWII hiding place as a learning space for the hiders. They continued learning by writing and discussing, as in the chronotope of the Salon.

The discussion then turns to the VOC-room in the University of Amsterdam where the faculty of Humanities is now seated. How does the history of this place influence the learning processes that characterize this place? And what does it mean that this hasn’t really been discussed? Our heritage from WWII seems to be allowed to haunt us, as shown by the popularity of the Anne Frank house, but our colonial history isn’t. Why is this the case? Peeren concludes with Bachtin, who explained that learning is an internal conflict: It’s going to be difficult! That internal conflict, or internal dialogue is not ignored at Castrum Peregrini. It is a learning space and thinking space where attention is paid to time and space. If more learning places such as universities would pay more attention to time and space, we would achieve different ways of learning, resulting in more inclusion.

To end with a clever statement from one of the students: It’s not about what the space does to you, it’s who you become because of the space that matters.

Peter Kraftl

The second talk of the day is given by professor Peter Kraftl. He talks about his research on geographies of alternative education, and alternative childhoods in the UK, which is fuelled by his interest in space and place, being a geographer.

Alternative childhoods question standard ways of testing and the way children’s bodies are treated in schools. They create spatial ways of learning. Examples are the so-called forest-schools in Denmark, where the pupils are largely being taught outside in nature, the Kilquhanity Democratic school in Scotland, where teachers and pupils come together every week to discuss what will happen next week in a completely democratic way, and the Findhorn Foundation in Scotland which is more spiritual. What was striking in his research is the fact that teachers in alternative schools speak about love so often. Love as a completely non-sexual, non-romantic emotion. In mainstream society these senses of love are touched upon, but not as frequent. One of Kraftl’s respondents states that we need to see something like love as something bigger than just between two people: love as a responsibility. Kraftl concludes that we need to see alternative childhoods as autonomous, rather than seeing them as alternative. They are autonomous because most of the time they are independent and more outward-looking. They are distinct, but not divorced from the mainstream!

Another point of discussion in the room revolves around the issues of class and inequality in relation to alternative childhoods. It really depends on the places you go to, states Kraftl, because there is a huge diversity within alternative childhoods. It is an important topic.

Jack Halberstam responds to Kraftl’s talk by saying that love being defined as opposed to sexuality is nonsense and impossible. Kraftl agrees that it is indeed problematic to separate love and sex (and jokingly suggested perhaps a very British thing to do.)

A student presses the question whether it’s ethical to homeschool a child. Isn’t it a form of child abuse? Maybe it is, but maybe it’s abuse to put children in a learning environment with only people of the same age. A complicated but interesting subject with much to discuss about.

Jack Halberstam

The seminar ends with Jack Halberstam talking about frightful leaps into darkness based on Auto-Destructive Art. In Halberstam’s own words: from talks about utopian projects we now dive into total destruction at the end of the day.

‘Art without a safety net’ is what Halberstam speaks about, in combination with why we might use queer theory to think differently about death. Why? We’re living in a world where life expectancy has been greatly increased. Also, technological investment happens so fast that we will reach the moment where we will have transcendent the physical condition of death. At least, this is what the trans humanists want us to believe. In a way, Halberstam states, we already are at that point because of IVF. People that normally wouldn’t be able to reproduce are able to now. You can see humanity move towards destruction and we have to think about reproduction and death differently. Auto destructive artists, like Gustav Metzker who lived in Amsterdam for a while in the 70s, aim to think about these subjects in a different way. Metzker has tried to shatter the sentimental investment in WWII, by making clear that the genocide continues and could easily happen again.

Halberstam ends with the following: let’s see if this archive of auto destructive art can give us a set of tools to think differently about embodiment, life, death, risk, safety, art, creativity, and violence. Is there anything within this archive that we can use for the current set of disasters that threaten us?

The contribution of Jack Halberstam was also broadcasted on Castrum Peregrini Facebook Live Feed, Friday 10th March.

As part of the project The Warp and Weft of Memory artist and writer Renée Turner took the initiative for a number of Critically Committed Pedagogies in the House of Gisèle on 20 January and 10 March 2017. The Warp and Weft of Memory is a research project by Renée Turner, which will result in an online narrative exploring the contents of Gisèle d’Ailly van Waterschoot van der Gracht’s wardrobe, and the ways in which it reflects her life, work, and larger histories through textiles and clothing. The Warp and Weft of Memory is made possible by the generous support of Mondriaan Fund

Amber Coomans studies heritage at Reinwardt Academie Amsterdam, and a minor Philosophy, Worl religions and Spirituatlity at HKU Utrecht. Amber joins team Castrum Peregrini on a voluntary basis.

 

Critically Committed Pedagogies, #2

Seminar

Critically Committed Pedagogies

Friday March 10th from 10:00 – 17:00

with contributions by:

Professor Peter Kraftl, chair in Human Geography College Director of Internationalisation at the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingham.

Dr. Esther Peeren is Associate Professor of Media Studies at the University of Amsterdam, Vice-Director of the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis (ASCA) and Vice-Director of the Amsterdam Centre for Globalisation Studies (ACGS).

Jack Halberstam is Professor of Gender Studies and English at Columbia University. Halberstam is the author of five books: Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters (Duke UP, 1995), Female Masculinity (Duke UP, 1998), In A Queer Time and Place (NYU Press, 2005), The Queer Art of Failure (Duke UP, 2011) and Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal (Beacon Press, 2012)

Moderated by Renee Turner and Frans-Willem Korsten 

Working from the unique place and the history of Castrum Peregrini, the Master Education in Arts programme of the Piet Zwart Institute and Castrum Peregrini, will host this semi-public seminar. Examining unexpected sites and paradigms of learning, the aim is to plot spaces for maneuverability, if not resistance or possibilities for imagining and acting otherwise.

As this is a working seminar with limited space to facilitate discussion, reservation is required. This event is FULLY booked >> If you wish to reserve a place on the waiting list, please do so before Monday, March 6th. Send your request to: Susana Pedrosa Email s.m.de.melo.pato.pedrosa.de.jesus@hr.nl

Home and Belonging

Round Table Conversation
Home and Belonging

Tuesday 28 February 2017, 20.00 hrs

Havaintokuva_PulkkinenWhile the ongoing war in Syria has caused millions of people to be displaced rendering them homeless, questions of identity and home have become acutely topical. Castrum Peregrini and the Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux are organizing a discussion event on the topic of “Home and Belonging”, investigating mobility of people and belongings.

Anssi Pulkkinen will open the discussion by presenting his new art work Street View (Reassembled), see picture. Pulkkinen, born 1982, is a visual artist living and working in Helsinki. Umayya Abu-Hanna an Amsterdam-based journalist and writer with palestinian roots, , Annukka Vähäsöyrinki is the Head of Programme at the Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux, and is currently producing the Mobile Home(less) project. She will discuss the process of the formation of value anMobile Homelessd function, but also the utopias and realities of human migration.Rana (A.J) Noman, Yemen, writer, social researcher. Rana is also represented in the exhibition Emerging hiStories with an object and a story.  Moderation: Özkan Gölpinar publicist and a member of the Dutch Cultural Council and co-curator of the exhibition Emerging hiStories.

Read more here.

Art As Resistance, #1 – by Leon Laskus

Art As Resistance,#1

Seminar on Saturday 4 February 2017

organized by Framer Framed, Humanity in Action and Castrum Peregrini

von: Leon Laskus

Am Samstag, den 04. Februar, startete erfolgreich der erste Teil der Symposiumsreihe „Art as Resistance, #1“ auf dem Intellectual Playground Castrum Peregrini in Zusammenarbeit mit Framer Framed und Humanity in Action.

Der Tag begann mit einem Grundsatzreferat der New Yorker Künstlerin Adeola Enigbokan, heute Professorin an der Universität von Amsterdam. Darauf folgten drei Workshops der Künstler Maria Guggenbichler, Charl Landvreugd und Patricia Kaersenhout zu kulturellen Identitäten, das kollektive Gedächtnis und über die Notwendigkeit Geschichte, wie sie präsentiert wird, zu hinterfragen.

Ich, seit einem halben Jahr Freiwilliger im Castrum Peregrini, nahm Teil am Workshop „Rewrite History“ von Patricia Kaersenhout. Nach dem die kulturelle Aktivistin und Performance Künstlerin ihre Ergebnisse ihrer bisherigen Werke präsentierte, war es die Aufgabe der Teilnehmer die Geschichte des Kolonialismus zu überarbeiten – in Sachbüchern oder als Collagen. Dabei sollten wir versuchen uns in eine Identität indigener Völker hineinzuverseIMG_3350tzen. Stift, Kleber und Messer waren dann unser Werkzeug die aus der zweiten Hälfte des letzten Jahrhunderts stammenden Bücher, welche zum Teil noch Rassenlehre beinhalteten, zu befreien.

Es war eine Art von kollektiver Kunst. Zuvor hatten Menschen mit diesen Büchern gearbeitet und mit deren Bildmaterial Collagen gestaltet. Patricia gab uns den Hinweis auf Affinität: Wir würden feststellen, dass wir mit jenen verbunden seien, die zuvor in dieser Weise an diesen Büchern arbeiteten. Und, es stimmte: ehe ich die übermalten, entfernten und ausradierten christlichen Symbole bemerkte, die im Geschichtsbuch nahezu überall verteilt waren, hatte ich schon begonnen die Kirchen aus den Bildern herauszuschneiden.

Nach dem Abschluss unserer Werke und das Auffassen von dem, was bereits andere vor mir im Buch getan haben, wurde es mir wieder deutlich, dass Geschichte sehr unterschiedlich präsentiert werden kann. Durch die neu gestalteten Bücher, wie auch Texte, ergab sich ein neuer Sinn der Zusammenhänge des Vergangenem. Aus der Sicht von vielen „Indianern“ also, würde beispielsweise eher „the Devil“ über den Köpfen der Kolonialherren stehen, als der Name mit sämtlichen prunkvollen adligen und militärischen Titeln.

Es zeigte sich mir, dass Kunst ein wunderbares Instrument sein kann, um aus einem Mainstream Geschichtsbild auszubrechen und durch so entstehende kritische Betrachtung des Mediums sein gewohntes Denkmuster der Geschichte zu ändern.

Leon Laskus volunteers during a year at Castrum Peregrini via Action Reconciliation Service for Peace ARSP a.k.a. ‘Aktion Sühnezeichen / Friedensdienste’. After finishing his school ‘Abitur’ in Berlin, he applied for a country and an organisation.  Every year around 180 volunteers, mostly aged between nineteen and twenty five are active for ARSP in thirteen different countries on a variety of educational, historical, political and social projects. For over 50 years ARSP has been committed to working toward reconciliation and peace, as well as fighting racism, discrimination and social exclusion. read more about ARSP

Conflicting Memories: Ukraine

Round Table Conversation
Conflicting Memories: Ukraine
A political crisis from a cultural perspective, part 2

due to circumstances: 16 February 2017 was POSTPONED >> a NEW date will be announced soon 

Language: English
Price: 7,50 euro, reduced fee 5 euro
RSVP at productie@castrumperegrini.nl

A collaboration between Castrum Peregrini and the European Cultural Foundation

Participants: Ivan Krastev, Centre for Liberal Strategies, Sofia, Vasyl Cherepanyn, Visual Culture Research Centre, Kyiv and laureate of the ECF Princess Margriet Award (2015) and Fleur de Weerd, journalist and former correspondent in Ukraine.

The participants will each give a short contribution on their view of the current conflict from the perspective of collective memory, followed by a panel discussion including the public moderated by Katherine Watson, director ECF.

Read more here.

and / or here

Art As Resistance, #1

Seminar
Art as Resistance, #1

Saturday 4 February, 11 – 17 hrs

Framer Framed, Humanity in Action and Castrum Peregrini are joining forces for a three part symposium series Art as Resistance. Our first edition starts with a key note lecture by artist & urbanist Dr. Adeola Enigbokan. Her manifesto:

ART & AFFINITY

In the wake of recent world events, art should help us to modify the groups or classes into which we organize ourselves. Art could also help us transform our thinking around where, and to whom, we belong. Art should create experiences that challenge us, forcing us to ask:

who are our “natural” companions?
who is our “true” family?
where do our obligations lie?
what are the stories we insist on telling ourselves about our “family,” our “nation,” and how can we leave these stories behind and tell new stories?

Art should constantly form and re-form us into associations along affinities we could not have imagined on our own.

After the keynote speech by Adeola Enigbokan after the lunch three interactive parallel workshops given by Maria Guggenbichler, Charl Landvreugd and Patricia Kaersenhout.

Programme

Patricia Kaersenhout

Patricia Kaersenhout

11.00-11.30 Doors open, coffee/tea and registration workshops
11.30-11.35 Welcome
11.35-12.20 Keynote by Adeola Enigbokan

12.20-13.00 Discussion/Q & A
13.00-14.00 Lunch
14.00-16.00 Parallel Workshops
16.00-16.20 Plenary wrap up
16.20-17.00 Drinks

See our Facebook Event for more information. Please make sure to book your Ticket(s) now.

Seminar on Critical Pedagogies

Seminarcritical pedagogies

Critical Pedagogies

Friday 20 January 2017

Friday 10 March 2017

From January through March 2017, Castrum Peregrini will host the Master Education in Arts students from the Piet Zwart Institute. The group will be meeting regularly in both Rotterdam and Amsterdam for a seminar on critical pedagogies.

Co-taught by Prof. Frans-Willem Korsten (The University of Leiden) and artist, Renee Turner, the seminar looks at critical pedagogies in the plural, meaning a range of educational theories with one common denominator, the term ‘critical’, which refers to the ability to analyze the social, cultural, pedagogical and institutional processes that are inherent to every form of education.

The seminar will also include a semi-public event on March 10th with guest speakers: Peter Kraftl (Chair in Human Geography at the University of Leicester), Esther Peeren (Associate Professor of Globalisation Studies at the Media Studies Department at the University of Amsterdam) and Jack Halberstam (Professor of American Studies and Ethnicity, Gender Studies and Comparative Literature at the University of Southern California).

 

If interested please send us an email: mail@castrumperegrini.nl

More information on the event and registration will follow.

Home and Belonging

Roundtable Discussion
Home and Belonging

28 February 2017, 20.00 hrs

Mathhew Wiebe Unsplash photo-1423958290593-a8eff6d8e583While the ongoing war in Syria has caused millions of people to be displaced rendering them homeless, questions of identity and home have become acutely topical. Castrum Peregrini and the Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux are organizing a discussion event on the topic of “Home and Belonging”, investigating mobility of people and belongings. The panel of speakers will discuss the process of the formation of value and function, but also the utopias and realities of human migration.

Havaintokuva_PulkkinenThe discussion event is part of the Finnish Cultural Institute’s artistic project Mobile Home(less). The institute has commissioned a new artwork, Street View (Reassembled), from Finnish sculptor Anssi Pulkkinen.  The art work is dealing with present day homelessness, and takes as its starting point ruins of a destroyed Syrian home, to create an installation that brings a caravan-like, mobile, temporary street view into an urban European city space. The work brings homelessness from behind news images into our everyday reality. The artist will be present at the event.

Castrum Peregrini’s exhibition Emerging [Hi]-Stories also looks at the symbolic value of material and objects as they move from one place to another. The exhibition (open 27.1.-10.3, Tue-Fri, 12-18 hrs) shows objects chosen of refugees to take with them on their journey and the stories they tell.

 

SPEAKERS

Umayya Abu-Hanna is an Amsterdam-based journalist and writer. Originally from Palestine, Abu-Hanna spent many years living and working in Finland prior to her re-location to the Netherlands. She has worked at the Finnish Broadcasting Company, Yle, as a columnist for the Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat, as a multi-cultural expert at the for the Finnish National Gallery and a board member of the Finnish Central Art Council. At the moment she works as an adviser in Pakhuis de Zwijger, a cultural organisation in Amsterdam.

Özkan Gölpinar is publicist and a member of the Dutch Cultural Council. The Cultural council is the legal advisory organ of the Dutch government on the arts, culture and media. He was attached to the Leiden University Center for the Arts in Society on the research program Contemporary Art Beyond Boundaries. As program maker he was attached to the Mondriaan Foundation and the Foundation for The Arts, Design and Architecture (BKVB).  He has 20 years’ experience as reporter with:  Volkskrant, Trouw etc. Gölpinar has written several books, essays, theatre plays, and documentaries.

Aleksi Malmberg is the director of the Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux. Amongst other things, he has worked as the programme manager for the Helsinki Festival, the largest cross-disciplinary art festival in the Nordic countries, the managing director for publishing house Tactus, as well as the executive director for Our Festival. The common thread of his manifold professional history has been the relationship of influence between art and society, and he has, for example, edited the history of Kulttuuritalo, a concert venue in Helsinki that has functioned at the collision point of politics and culture.

 

Partners

Castrum Peregrini, ‘the fortress of the pilgrim’, is the nom de guerre of a WWII safehouse in the city centre of Amsterdam. Driven by her beliefs of art and friendship artist Gisèle van Waterschoot van der Gracht (1912 – 2013) helped young intellectuals and artists survive the war by offering them refuge in her house. Many parts of this canal house remain unchanged, making its history palpable. The human values of the House of Gisèle have grown and deepened in post-war years. On this background, Castrum Peregrini has developed into a lively house which organizes debates, publications and exhibitions.

The Finnish Cultural Institute for the Benelux is an independent, non-profit cultural organisation located in Brussels. As part of the network of Finnish Cultural and Academic Institutes abroad, it serves as a liaison between stakeholders in the field of culture from Finland and the Benelux countries. The Institute is an expert organisation which offers artists and organisations opportunities to create discussion, new projects and new possibilities of collaboration.

Conflicting Memories: Ukraine

 Round Table Conversation

Conflicting Memories: Ukraine
A political crisis from a cultural perspective, part 2

16 February 2016, 20.00 hrs12-debat by Pip Erken

Language: English
Price: 7,50 euro, reduced fee 5 euro
RSVP at productie@castrumperegrini.nl

A collaboration between Castrum Peregrini and the European Cultural Foundation

 

Participants: Ivan Krastev, Centre for Liberal Strategies, Sofia, Vasyl Cherepanyn, Visua10-debat by Pip Erkenl Culture Research Centre, Kyiv and 2015 laureate of the ECF Princess Margriet Award and Fleur de Weerd, journalist and former correspondent in Ukraine.

The participants will each give a short contribution on their view of the current conflict from the perspective of collective memory, followed by a panel discussion including the public moderated by Katherine Watson, director ECF.

The conflict in Ukraine is often seen in a global perspective: geopolitical spheres seem to compete again, often with reference to cold war rhetoric.
On the ground the conflict has another dimension: clashing collective memories resulting in seemingly different cultural identities. Panellists will try to deconstruct cultural reference points that form the basis of the conflict and talk about what would be needed to construct new, inclusive narratives.

The evening follows up a similar discussion one-and-a-half years ago, when the images of the Maidan clashes where still fresh in mind. What has happened since, what is the perspective for Ukrainian identity internally and internationally at the moment?

On the participants:

Ivan Krastev is the Chairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia, and permanent fellow at the IWM Institute of Human Sciences in Vienna. He is a founding board member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, e.a. He was ranked in the 2008 Top 100 Public Intellectuals Foreign Policy/Prospect List. Since 2004, he has been the executive director of the International Commission on the Balkans chaired by the former Italian Prime Minister Giuliano Amato.

Vasyl Cherepanyn is director of the Visual Culture Research Center (Kiev), works as a senior lecturer at the Cultural Studies Department of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, and is an editor of Political Critique magazine. Cherepanyn holds a Ph.D. in philosophy (specialisation – aesthetics). He has also worked as a guest lecturer at the Institute for Advanced Studies of the Political Critique in Warsaw, Poland and the Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg Greifswald of the Greifswald University, Germany.

Fleur de Weerd is a historian, and independent journalist, who has written extensively about Germany and the former Soviet Union for various newspapers in the Netherlands and Belgium. She was the official correspondent for Dutch daily Trouw in Ukraine during the Euro-Cup Soccer championship and has visited the country often in 2014. Her book Het land dat maar niet wil lukken was awarded the prestigious Bob den Uyl-prijs for best literary travelogue. It recounts various diverse and complex (hi)stories of Ukraine and its inhabitants.

see also at the European Cultural Foundation

share our invitation: Conflicting_Memories_Ukraine_ECF and CP_16Feb2017

 

Important Souvnirs

Exhibition

Amie Dicke: Important Souvnirs

castrum_24On show until 23 december 2016 during guided Visits House of Gisèle and during events.
Important Souvnirs is also part of Amsterdam Art Weekend 24-27 November

Since 2009 Amie Dicke is attracted to the house of Castrum Peregrini, its interiors and its stories. She has made work related to the place, in situ or conceptually. Her artistic interventions have challenged the development of the place. Simultaneously the place had a significant impact on the artistic development and the works of Dicke. Starting off with bold statements like the work Claustrophobic (2009) her perspective and approach has changed from that of an intervenor towards that of an observer, reading traces, isolating images from their contexts and therefore challenging our perspectives. Since 2014 Dicke has put her focus on the private apartments and the studio of Castrum Peregrini founder, the artist Gisèle van Waterschoot van der Gracht (1912 – 2013). Dickes research fed into important-souvnirs.com named after a brief note by Gisèle: ‘do not touch I am sorting Important Souvnirs’ During the whole autumn season – in conjunction with other events – Castrum Peregrini will show work of Dicke within the historic contexts that are challenged by the work.

During Amsterdam Art Weekend, on Friday 25, Saturday 26 & Sunday 27 November from 14.00 – 15.00 hrs Amie Dicke will illustrate her approach in situ, from the historic material in the House of Gisèle to the outcomes presented in the studio of Gisèle.  Upon resservation only through mail(at)castrumperegrini.nl. Price: 10 euro per person in groups of 12 persons max. See http://weekend.amsterdamart.com/event/important-souvnirs-amie-dicke

screening ‘Herengracht 401’

Film Screening

‘Herengracht 401’ poster

Tuesday 20 December, 20 hrs

A documentary about the fascinating house of ‘Castrum Peregrini’ and a document that shows from different perspectives how the memory of the house is captivated and owned. ‘Herengracht 401’ had its première at the Dutch Film Festival in Utrecht last September 2016. And will make a tour in the art house cinemas in the Netherlands and abroad. A film by Janina Pigaht. With aftwards a talk moderated by Rosemarie Buikema, professor Gender studies University of Utrecht. 

Tuesday 20 December entrance: € 7,50, reduced € 5,-

RSVP: mail@castrumperegrini.nl

Residencies supported by Mondriaan Fund

 
2017 artists in the residence at Castrum Peregrini supported by the Mondriaan Fund

 

March & April 2017: Pieter Paul Pothoven 

 

The work of Pieter Paul Pothoven (1981, NL) comprises sculpture, installation, and includes different forms of writing as well. In his projects, he searches for alternative ways of engaging with the past through study of historical sites, artifacts and resources, in order to mediate new relationships with history often based on their potential use-value in the present.

During a 2-month residency at Castrum Peregrini, he will continue to study socialist resistance before, during and after the Second World War in Amsterdam. Central to his project is a comparative study of three groups that organized their actions in radically different times but share similar motives.

 

pothoven_castrum_peregrini_2017Pieter Paul Pothoven received his BFA at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam (NL) and his MFA at Parsons The New School of Design, New York. He was a resident at Fine Arts Work Center, Provincetown (US), Van Eyck Academie, Maastricht (NL) and Instituto Sacatar, Salvador (BR). His work has been shown in various solo and group exhibitions. Recent exhibitions include: ‘You talkin’ to me?’, Barbara Seiler, Zürich (CH); ‘Sunsets never looked as stunning as through the haze of factory sooth’, Van Eyck Acadamie, Maastricht (NL); ‘Territorial Drift’, Garage, Rotterdam (NL); ‘Listen to the Stones, think like a mountain’, Tatjana Pieters, Ghent (BE); ‘Lapis Lazuli from Serr-i-Sang’, PuntWG, Amsterdam (NL); ‘11:59, on a date of no particular significance’, Hudson D. Walker gallery, Provincetown (US); ‘The intelligence of Things’, The Kitchen, New York (US). He initiated and co-curated ‘Weight of Colour’, a symposium about the materiality of color, Amsterdam (NL) and the group exhibition ‘I scarcely have the right to use this ghostly verb’, New York, (US). His texts have been published in amongst others: Anamesa Journal, Simulacrum, Volume, De Gids and Beyroutes, an Alternative Guide to Beirut. Currently he lives and works in Amsterdam. pieterpaulpothoven.com

 

October & November 2017: Aimée Zito Lema

Rond de Jambe, video still, 2015

Rond de Jambe, video still, 2015

Expanding an insignificant event, isolating a sudden movement, choosing an affective gesture and zeroing in on it until we lose ourselves in the sounds it emits, the grain of the photo or the word that names it, furnishes us with a chance to reinterpret the events as they are presented to us, and of understanding history from new perspectives.

The Subversive Body, 2016 / Installationview @ Wilfried Lentz Rotterdam/ Photo: Sander van Wettum

The Subversive Body, 2016 / Installationview @ Wilfried Lentz Rotterdam/ Photo: Sander van Wettum

Aimée Zito Lema grounds her practice in this premise. Based on a process of selection and appropriation, Zito Lema zooms in on the detail of gestures, often by using archive images taken of working class demonstrations or counter-cultural movements. This motif, once enlarged almost to the point of abstraction, brings to mind the mechanism that enables cooperation and development within a community, or a movement, or an affective structure than bonds a group or a family. It is revealed to us in her work, just as a tiny detail can give rise to a community spirit and all that this brings with it. Her artistic practice structures the narrative around the process, triggering a dynamic that, taken together, lends meaning to the work. The idea leads to an expression, act or performance. This work in turn gives rise to the object that, inasmuch as a metaphor, returns us to the expression from which it came, only to be recycled and give birth to new possibilities.*

For her residency at Castrum Peregrini Zito Lema will focus on the role of friendship within adverse social-political circumstances.  She will research different notions of friendship in political contexts, taking as starting point the history of the house of Gisele van Waterschoot. Looking at past and present, searching for traces of these notions of friendship, understood as solidarity and support structure.

Portrait Aimée: Photo by Hugo Tillman

Portrait Aimée: Photo by Hugo Tillman

Visual artist Aimée Zito Lema (born in Amsterdam, 1982, grew up in Buenos Aires) studied at the University of the Arts, Buenos Aires, the Gerrit Rietveld Academy, Amsterdam, and followed the Master Artistic Research program of the Royal Academy in The Hague (2009 – 2011). She was artist-in-resident at the Rijksakademie (2015-2016). Her recent exhibitions include: The 11th Gwangju Biennale; The Dorothea von Stetten Award, Kunstmuseum Bonn; Hors Pistes: L’art de la Revolte, Centre Pompidou Paris (all in 2016); the long-term project Body at Work at Casco, Utrecht (2013 – 2014); and the residency ‘Het Vijfde Seizoen’, Den Dolder, (2011).

Emerging [Hi]-Stories

Logo+raster_600_rgb_72dpiDe overlevering van overleven; verhalen en objecten van vluchtelingen. Samengesteld door Özkan Golpinar en Nadette de Visser.

Vernissage, 27 januari 2017, 17 uur
Te zien tot 10 maart 2017
O
pen dinsdag t/m vrijdag 12-18 uur

Een verzameling van twintig symbolische objecten en verhalen over vlucht, beproeving en groei. Via de verhalen en voorwerpen, verzamelt aan de Turks-Syrische grens, in Nederland en in Duitsland, worden ‘wij’ met ‘de ander’ verbonden. Emerging [Hi]Stories vertelt over over de menselijke conditie van het vluchtelingschap.

Door voorwerpen, verhalen en installaties op verschillende plekken in het Atelier van Gisele, wordt de menselijke conditie van dat vluchtelingschap uitgebeeld. Deze vertolkingen gaan een dialoog aan met de geschiedenis van Castrum Peregrini. Soms worden objecten getoond als kostbaar artifact, op een pilaar in een display case, dan weer uitvergroot afgedrukt op plexiglas of doek, altijd vergezelt door het voorwerp en het verhaal waaraan zij hun betekenis ontleenden. Vluchtelingen zelf leiden bezoekers langs hun verhalen.

De geschiedenis van de mens is er een van mobiliteit. Terwijl het Westen grote stromen mensen uit het Zuiden en Oosten ziet, tekent zich een schisma af. Een onzichtbare scheiding die de wereld in ‘wij’ en ‘hun’ verdeelt.

Daar wordt communiceren en verbinden moeizaam. Politici zetten hekken neer en wedijveren voor muren. Als men een muur bouwt, sluit men dan de ander buiten, of sluit men zichzelf in? Deze selectie persoonlijke verhalen en voorwerpen wil gaten maken in de onzichtbare hekken van de geest. Lees je iemands verhaal, dan kun je de ‘ander’ worden, als een karakter in een roman. Dit is een zoektocht naar een universele werkelijkheid.

radio-1Nasser Fakhteh vertelt ons zijn verhaal. Hij zat gevangen in Iran, eerst onder de Sjah, later onder de Ayatollah’s. Zijn vader kocht een radio met wereldontvangst toen hij, op 17 jarige leeftijd, voor het eerst werd opgepakt.

“Ik kon met vrijwel niemand meer communiceren terwijl hij een deur naar de wereld vond, onzichtbaar, over de radiogolven. (..) De gevangenis van de Sjah waarin ik zat is nu een museum. (..)Op twee eindeloze bakstenen muren zijn plaatjes bevestigd met de namen van alle voormalige gevangen. In grote letters daarboven staat: ‘De muren spreken’(..)Maar die andere gevangenis, die van de Ayatollahs waar ik met heel veel van hen daarna in terecht kwam, daar hebben ze het niet over.”

Zie ook www.emerginghistories.com

Workshop Dirt, Punk, Trash UvA

Workshop

Dirt, Punk, Trash

Thursday 1 December 2016, 14 hrs

‘Dirt, Punk, Trash’ is a workshop where art/cultural theoreticians and practitioners theorize the notions — which are now often employed interchangeably — in two ways. They discuss concrete punk-, dirt- and trash-focused cultural practices and objects; and they map and unravel conceptual interrelations between the notions. Speakers are dirt/punk/trash experts Gluklya (Factory of Found Clothes, St. Petersburg / A’dam), Caleb Kelly (University of New South Wales), Natalia Samutina (Higher School of Economics, Moscow), Yngvar Steinholt (Tromso University). punk-dirt-trash-worksop-dec-2016

The workshop is introduced and moderated by the members of the VIDI Sublime Imperfections team Fabienne Rachmadiev, Jakko Kemper, and Ellen Rutten (all UvA). Click here for more information and abstracts Guests are welcome; for questions, registration and more information please contact Omar Elgendy OmarElgendy@live.nl

Le musée imaginaire by Jean-Hubert Martin

Lecture

Le musée imaginaire

by Jean-Hubert Martin 

25 November, 08:30 – 10 uur

  • this lecture is sold out

amsterdam-art-weekendDeze lezing is georganiseerd door Frans Hals Museum | De Hallen Haarlem, Oude Kerk, Museum van Loon en Castrum Peregrini in samenwerking met Amsterdam Art. Het ’transhistorische’ – het verbinden van heden en verleden – is voor elk van deze instellingen is een belangrijk onderwerp. Ze beogen erfgoed te verbinden aan hedendaagse kunst en sociale kwesties, bevragen traditionele kunsthistorische categorisering en ontwikkelen nieuwe inzichten hoe (kunst)objecten betekenis krijgen los van hun oorspronkelijke context.

Jean-Hubert Martin geeft tijdens het Amsterdam Art Weekend 2016 een lezing over ‘transhistorical curating’ in de Oude Kerk. Martin is een van ‘s werelds meest toonaangevende curatoren. In zijn loopbaan als onder meer directeur van Museum Kunstpalast in Düsseldorf en curator van de legendarische tentoonstelling ‘Magiciens de la Terre’ (1989) heeft hij bijgedragen aan de verbreding van het begrip hedendaagse kunst.

Tijdens ‘On Transhistorical Curating’ zal Martin zijn transculturele en transhistorisch tentoonstellingspraktijk toelichten, met de nadruk op zijn meest recente tentoonstelling, Carambolages (2 maart tot 4 juli 2016, Grand Palais, Parijs).

location and tickets at: Oude Kerk. €10 (incl. koffie & croissant)  Vrije entree met Museumkaart, ICOM card, stadspas, I Amsterdam Card
Beperkt aantal plaatsen – this lecture is sold out!

Imagine IC & Castrum Peregrini N8 2016

Museumnacht 2016

Roti Rollen & Bitterballen

5 November, 19-02 uur

Grootse dromen, geringe kansen. Castrum Peregrini en Imagine IC kijken dit jaar tijdens de Museumnacht samen naar overeenkomsten tussen onderduikers in WOII en jonge migranten net in Nederland aangekomen. Hoewel er driekwart eeuw tussen zit, vertellen de paralellen een universeel verhaal over de mensheid, niet tijdsgebonden en vrij van culturele en etnische verschillen. ‘Selfies as Footprints’ en ‘Remnants of a lost world’. Leer van het verleden en neem het mee voor nu.

selfies-as-footprints-n8-2016

Ook de bar is zat 5 nov. een hotline van Amsterdam Zuidoost waar Imagine IC is gevestigd naar de Herengracht in het centrum; met Roti Rollen & Bitterballen, Wodka/Red Bull, Hernandez & Gin Tonic.

Met live optredens van de band ‘Burning Down the House’

Kaarten en meer info via www.n8.nl

Film ‘Herengracht 401’

Herengracht 401A film by Janina Pigaht
Première Saturday 24 September, extra screening on Thursday 29 September at Nederlands Film Festival 2016 Utrecht

Screenings at Castrum Peregrini, Amsterdam City Archive, Amsterdam Museum, Framer Framed and other partners

Tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog was het statige grachtenpand aan de Herengracht 401 een onderduikadres. Na de oorlog vormden de onderduikjaren de basis voor een hechte leefgemeenschap, die door de bewoners Castrum Peregrini werd gedoopt. 2013 is de oprichtster en patrones, Gisèle d’Ailly van Waterschoot van der Gracht, overleden. Nu is het de taak van de huidige bewoners -Michaël, Frans en Lars- om het huis een nieuwe bestemming te geven. Terwijl zij opruimen en verbouwen om het huis open te kunnen stellen voor publiek, begint regisseur Janina Pigaht te graven in het verleden. Ze wil het verhaal van het huis vastleggen. Maar is er eigenlijk wel een eenduidig verhaal te vertellen?

 

Herengracht 401 from eenvandejongens on Vimeo.

ENDS MEET – Marijn Bax

Exhibition

Marijn Bax: Ends Meet.

Unseen beeld Marijn Bax

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Vernissage
Friday 16 September, 16 hrs by Stijn Huijts, artistic director Bonnefanten Museum Maastricht
16 – 25 September 2016
Open daily 12 – 18 hrs
Ends Meet is part of unseen photo festival 
Lecture: Thursday 22 September, 20 hrs ‘RUIMTE, bron voor GELIJKTIJDIGHEID’ by Fons Elders, philosopher


For Ends Meet, Marijn Bax has investigated the archive and studio of the artist Gisèle van Waterschoot van de Gracht. Gisèle’s note “Where is the frontier of like and love?” formed the basis for her new work which will be exhibited by Castrum Peregrini in Gisèle’s former studio.

Marijn Bax’ work and aspiration is driven by a deep interest in the human psyche and how humans relate to their physical and mental environment. Based on personal stories she addresses universal themes and creates opportunities to question our own behaviour and how our perception is continuously influenced.

Photography is her stepping stone towards a variety of media and materials such as video, audio, writing, 3D installations and public opinion, to reflect upon this invisible and complex matter.

Marijn Bax (1981) graduate from the Academy of Art and Graphics – Sint Joost, Breda, NL. Site-specific installations based on historical stories are her main focus. In  2015 she received the Talent Development Grant from the Mondriaan Fund for emerging artists.

On Saturday 17, Sunday 18 and Sunday 25 september, between 14 – 17 hrs the artist will be present in a ‘dialogue with the audience without words’. For additional programme see our Facebook page.

Call for volunteers!

IMG_3352Are you interested in contemporary culture combining a heroic past with pressing social issues? Would you like to support a non-profit arts organization with a long and unique history?

Castrum Peregrini is looking for volunteers:

Host in the exhibition space: As part of the on-going public program Memory Machine Castrum Peregrini organizes exhibitions in collaboration with cultural producers, taking place in the old studio of founder Gisèle van Waterschoot van der Gracht.

Bartender: Castrum Peregrini regularly organizes lectures, debates, performances and movie screenings that target a broad audience, including creative producers, artists, students, teachers and academics. Afterwards visitors meet in the bar.

Tour guide: Castrum Peregrini offers guided tours of the historic house, visiting the authentic hiding floor and studio of Gisèle van Waterschoot van der Gracht is. As a guide you tell the story of Gisèle and the history of Castrum Peregrini to groups of up to 12 people who sign up in advance.

Exhibitions are open from Monday to Friday, from 12:00 – 18:00.
Events take place in the evening or during weekends.
Tours by appointment.

IMG_3485What we ask:

  • Proficiency in Dutch or in English
  • Available from 4 hours per week (host shifts are from 10:00 to 14:00 and from 14:00 to 18:00, bar shifts from 18:00 to 22:00)
  • A representative, friendly attitude to visitors
  • Willingness to learn more about the exhibitions
  • Dedication: the hosts, bar staff and tour guides keep the program running!

What we offer:

  • Invitation to all our openings and events (and free drinks during events)
  • Annual Festive event for all people involved
  • A chance to work together with the international network and team of Castrum Peregrini, and meet international artists and other professionals from the art and cultural world
  • Work at an inspiring place
  • Specifically during your shifts:
    • A place to read / study / work• Free drinks (coffee / tea / juice) and cookies

Enthusiastic? Please e-mail Judith, j.couvee@castrumperegrini.nl, for questions or to apply, including your motivation.

Castrum Peregrini zoekt vrijwilligers!

IMG_3352Ben je geïnteresseerd in een heroïsch verleden dat hedendaagse cultuur met acute maatschappelijke vraagstukken verbindt?

Wil je een non-profit kunstorganisatie met bewogen geschiedenis steunen?

We zoeken mensen voor verschillende taken:

  • Host in de expositieruimte: In het kader van het doorlopende publieksprogramma Memory Machine organiseert Castrum Peregrini in samenwerking met culturele producenten verschillende tentoonstellingen in het oude atelier van oprichter Gisèle van Waterschoot van der Gracht.
  • Barmedewerker: Castrum Peregrini organiseert regelmatig lezingen, debatten, performances en filmavonden die zich richten op een breed publiek, zoals creative producers, kunstenaars, studenten, docenten, academici en opiniemakers. Na afloop ontmoeten mensen elkaar in de barruimte.
  • Rondleider: Castrum Peregrini biedt rondleidingen aan in het historische huis, waarbij onder andere de authentieke onderduiketage en het atelier van Gisèle van Waterschoot van der Gracht te bezichtigen zijn. IMG_3485Als rondleider vertel je het verhaal van Gisèle en de geschiedenis van Castrum Peregrini aan groepjes van maximaal 12 mensen die zich van te voren aanmelden.
Tentoonstellingen zijn geopend van maandag t/m vrijdag van 12:00 – 18:00.
Evenementen vinden plaats in de avond of in het weekend.
Rondleidingen op afspraak.


Wat we van jou vragen

  • Vaardigheid in het Nederlands of in het Engels (beide is een pre)
  • Beschikbaarheid vanaf 4 uur per week (host shifts zijn van 10:00 – 14:00 en van 14:00 – 18:00, bar shifts van 18:00 – 22:00)
  • Een representatieve, vriendelijke houding ten opzichte van bezoekers
  • Bereidheid je te verdiepen in de tentoonstellingen
  • Toewijding: vrijwillig maar niet vrijblijvend, de hosts, barmedewerkers en rondleiders houden het programma draaiende!

Wat we je kunnen bieden

  • Een plek in een hecht team
  • Uitnodiging voor al onze openingen en evenementen (en gratis drankjes tijdens evenementen)
  • Jaarlijks feestelijke bijeenkomst voor alle betrokkenen
  • Een kans samen te werken met het internationale netwerk en het team van Castrum Peregrini en internationale kunstenaars en andere professionals uit de kunst- en cultuursector te ontmoeten
  • Werk op een inspirerende plek

Specifiek tijdens je shifts

  • Een plek om aan te lezen/studeren/werken
  • Gratis drinken (koffie/thee/fris) en iets lekkers
Enthousiast? Email Judith j.couvee@catsrumperegrini.nl om je aan te melden!

DSC08080IMG_4616

Exhibition Marijn Bax

Unseen beeld Marijn BaxWhere is the frontier of LIKE and LOVE?

16-30 September 2016
Open 12 – 18 uur, vrij toegang
part of Unseen Photo Fair

The work of Marijn Bax is often site-specific. Her new work Ends Meet is the second work she presents at Castrum Peregrini. For this work she did an investigation into the archive of Gisèle van Waterschoot van der Gracht, focussed on the question found on one of her own notes: Where is the frontier of LIKE and LOVE?.
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Memory Machine Magazine

Zaterdag 1 november verscheen het magazine Memory Machine, 56 pagina’s vol artikelen over onze identiteit en het cultureel geheugen. Uitgever Castrum Peregrini vroeg zanger/schrijver Rick de Leeuw vijf bekende Nederlanders te interviewen over welke plek bepalend is geweest voor hun identiteit. En er is een verrassende kijk op iconische fotobeelden die ons collectief gedachtengoed bepaald hebben. Het blad verschijnt als éénmalige bijlage van Het Parool.

Het magazine is onderdeel van het langlopende programma Memory Machine. We are what we remember, georganiseerd door Castrum Peregrini, centrum voor denken, debat en cultuur, samen met een aantal partnerinstellingen. Ons cultureel geheugen en de relatie die dat heeft met wie wij zijn, staat centraal in dit programma vol tentoonstellingen, debat, toneel, documentaires, radio en publicaties.

Je bent wat je je herinnert: identiteit hangt  nauw samen met wat zich in ons geheugen heeft genesteld. De politieke turbulentie van vandaag is onlosmakelijk verbonden aan vragen rondom onze identiteit en onze collectieve waardes: van de Oekraïne, Syrië, Noord-Irak  tot aan Zwarte Piet en de verlokking van het jihadisme bij jongeren. Bij wie ben je thuis, waar voel je je veilig?

Het tijdschrift Memory Machine zoomt in op ons vermogen om te herinneren, maar ook om te vergeten. Verslaggevers gaan op zoek naar de vraag: Wat is er leuk aan een reünie? Hoe maken politici slim gebruik van onze trots over collectieve waardes en wat betekenen social media voor de identiteit van jongeren vandaag? Dichter Maria Barnas tot slot, tekent de stad zoals zij zich hem herinnert: een droomroute langs liefdes, eerste baantjes, Theo van Gogh en getroebleerde dichters.

Het nummer Memory Machine is los verkrijgbaar bij CASTRVM PEREGRINI, of als download hier.

< Back to all Memory Machine publications

New 3Package Deal coalition: Transhistoricity

De Oude Kerk, Museum van Loon, Castrum Peregrini and De Reinwardt Academie make up the new coalition “Transhistoriciteit” supported within the framework of 3Package Deal. It wants to stimulate ‘creative producers’ to develop activities that connect and combine historic periods and cultural contexts.

RPThe coalition partners have selected Tel Aviv based artist Ronit Porat to live and work in Amsterdam for a year as of September 2016. Her studio will be based, in turn, at the host institutions.

Artist Ronit Porat writes about her art, “My engagement with times and places is not an external one, but applies a subjective circular motion that begins with the personal, shifts to the collective, and then returns to the self.” So then, according to Porat – who holds a MFA from the esteemed Chelsea College of Art and Design and who has exhibited her art in dozens of shows from Paris to Warsaw to Jerusalem to Albania and beyond – time and history are transcendent and the mistakes and victories of our histories reside with us now and here.

‘Untitled’ , 2012, The Kids who were shot, (The Marching Children, Alfred Alfred Eisenstaedt)

‘Untitled’ , 2012, The Kids who were shot, (The Marching Children, Alfred Alfred Eisenstaedt)

Her art clearly explores these concepts of subjectivity and transcendence and connectedness, and her primary tools are juxtaposition, overlay, and mixed media. Using these tools among many, she shows us that time and history are not just one thing, but they are cobbled together to forge a collective memory that colors the way we see the world: on top of an image of an unidentified boy, she scribbles a Hitler mustache; she juxtaposes a nose-diving war plane with a nose-diving woman dressed in a short white garment; she tears in half a self portrait of Marianne Breslauer; in several images of unusual bodies, she convolutes anatomy and physiology to craft images that are at once familiar and alien. And the wondrous, whimsical, challenge of her work is tempered with a muted grayscale color scheme that unites each of her pieces as sentences in one large conversation about what it is to be alive.

One inspiration for Porat’s work is the Kibbutz in which she grew up, a “unique place which derives it identity from its history and the story behind its settlement.” Through her upbringing there, Ronit Porat began to understand how important it was to analyze histories holistically, incorporating objects and artifacts that come from various periods and cultural contexts. One can clearly see this in her work, which is radically inclusive and pleasantly jarring because of its unexpected pairings of disparate images and texts. Regarding her reasons for mixing so many images, Porat says that “everything can be included in order to create new narratives from the images that resonate with memory, pain and belonging.” And indeed, viewers are sure to experience visceral emotions when enjoying the Israeli artist’s work; it is easy to feel as though we too are included in her art, that she is telling our personal histories.

Ronit Porat’s art has resonated with audiences all over the world, and she has received coveted awards from organizations such as America-Israel Cultural Foundation, the Arab Jewish seminar on Creative Environment, the Ministry of Culture and Sport, and the Hadassah College of Technology. She was also named Musrara, Jerusalem’s Artist for Social Change in 2009.

Lychnari – Gisèle (1988)

LYCHNARI – GISÈLE

verkenningen in het Griekenland van nu

publiceerde in 1988 in het kunstkatern het artikel ‘GISÈLE’ geschreven door archeoloog en Griekenland expert Stella Lubsen.

Lychnari is sinds 1987 een Nederlandstalig tijdschrift over het hedendaagse Griekenland, met als ondertitel: “Verkenningen in het Griekenland van nu”. Het verschijnt vier keer per jaar. Het Griekse woord lychnari betekent olielampje: het tijdschrift wil — voor een breed publiek, maar met een zekere diepgang — licht werpen op de moderne Griekse wereld: van Griekenland, van Cyprus en van de Grieken waar ook ter wereld.

Lees hier het hele artikel ‘Gisele’ in Lychnari Jaargang 2 Nr 1 1988

IMG_2469

In 1988 blikt Gisèle (1912 – 2013) in gesprek met Stella Lubsen terug op de zomers die zij vanaf de jaren zestig op het Griekse eiland Paros doorbracht, een periode die weer een heel nieuwe dimensie aan haar brede oeuvre toevoegde. Haar atelier in haar kloostertje Aghios Ioannis op basis waarvan Gisèle haar laatste grote atelier in Amsterdam inrichtte.

 

De 2e jaargang van dit academische tijdschrift verscheen bijna 30 jaar geleden, toen begon het editorial met de onderstaande inleidende kop en tekst. Die regel sluit nog altijd nauw aan bij de huidige situatie, zou je kunnen zeggen.

Spannende Tijden Het nieuwe jaar is in Griekenland begonnen met allerlei belangrijke ontwikkelingen, die een stempel kunnen gaan drukken op de binnenlandse verhoudingen en de buitenlandse politiek van het land.

 

Kenan Malik: Living in Diversity

Kenan Malik‘s lecture ‘Living In Diversity’ at Castrum Peregrini, 2 May 2016, was organised on the occasion of the launch of the Gisèle House.
He writes about his experience at Castrum Peregrini on his personal blog.
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KnipselLiving in Diversity  

‘Can Europe be the same with different people in it?’ So asked the American writer Christopher Caldwell in his book, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, published a few years ago. It is a question that has been asked with increasing urgency in recent years as the question of immigration, and in particular of Islamic immigration, has taken centre stage.

At the heart of this question lies the dilemma of how Western societies should respond to the influx of peoples with different traditions, backgrounds and beliefs. What should be the boundaries of tolerance in such societies? Should immigrants be made to assimilate to Western customs and norms or is integration a two-way street? Such questions have bedeviled politicians and policy-makers for the past half-century. They have also tied liberals in knots.

The conundrums about diversity have been exacerbated by the two issues that now dominate contemporary European political discourse – the migration crisis and the problem of terrorism. How we discuss these issues, and how we relate the one to the other, will shape the character of European societies over the net period.

The migration crisis is often seen as an issue of numbers. More than a million irregular migrants arrived on Europe’s shores last year. The images of thousands of migrants desperately crossing the Aegean, or trudging their way through the Balkans, or arriving at railway stations in Hungary, Austria and Germany filled our TV screens for much of the past year. They give a sense of a continent under siege, of seemingly the whole world wanting to come to Europe.

The numbers of migrants coming to Europe are indeed large. But it is worth putting these numbers in context. One million migrants constitute less than 0.2 per cent of the EU’s population. Turkey, the country to which migrants are being deported under the new deal signed with the EU, has a population one seventh that of the EU, but is already host to some 3 million Syrian refugees. There are already 1.3 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon – 20 per cent of the population. That is the equivalent of Europe playing host to 100m refugees. Pakistan and Iran each have over 1 million refugees within their borders.

Some of the poorest countries in the world, in other words, already bear the greatest burden when it comes to helping refugees. If these countries were to adopt Europe’s attitude, there really would be a crisis.

Debates about immigration are, however, rarely about numbers as such. They are much more about who the migrants are, and about underlying anxieties of nation, community, identity and values. ‘We should not forget’, claimed Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, as Hungary put up new border fences, and introduced draconian new anti-immigration laws, ‘that the people who are coming here grew up in a different religion and represent a completely different culture. Most are not Christian, but Muslim.’ ‘Is it not worrying’, he asked, ‘that Europe’s Christian culture is already barely able to maintain its own set of Christian values?’

Many thinkers, Christian and non-Christian, religious and non-religious, echo this fear of Muslim immigration undermining the cultural and moral foundation of Western civilization. The late Oriana Fallaci, the Italian writer who perhaps more than most promoted the notion of Eurabia – the belief that Europe is being Islamicised – described herself as a ‘Christian atheist’, insisting that only Christianity provided Europe with a cultural and intellectual bulwark against Islam. The British historian Niall Ferguson calls himself ‘an incurable atheist’ and yet is alarmed by the decline of Christianity which undermines ‘any religious resistance’ to radical Islam. Melanie Phillips, a non-believing Jew, argues in her book The World Turned Upside Down that ‘Christianity is under direct and unremitting cultural assault from those who want to destroy the bedrock values of Western civilization.’

To look upon migration in this fashion is, I want to suggest, a misunderstanding of both Europe’s past and Europe’s present. To understand why, I want first to explore two fundamental questions, the answers to which must frame any discussion on inclusion and morality. What we mean by a diverse society? And why should we value it, or indeed, fear it?

When we think about diversity today in Europe, the picture we see is that of societies that in the past were homogenous, but have now become plural because of immigration. But in what way were European societies homogenous in the past? And in what ways are they diverse today?

Certainly, if you had asked a Frenchman or an Englishman or a Spaniard in the nineteenth or the fifteenth or the twelfth centuries, they would certainly not have described their societies as homogenous. And were they to be transported to contemporary Europe, it is likely that they would see it as far less diverse than we do.

Our view of the Europe of the past is distorted by historical amnesia; and our view of the Europe of the present is distorted by a highly restricted notion of diversity. When we talk of European societies as historically homogenous, what we mean is that they used to be ethnically, or perhaps culturally, homogenous. But the world is diverse in many ways. Societies are cut through by differences, not only of ethnicity, but also of class, gender, faith, politics, and much else.

Many of the fears we have of the consequences of modern diversity are in fact echoes of fears that were central to what we now see as homogenous Europe. Consider, for instance, the debate about the clash between Islam and the West, and fear of Islamic values as incompatible with those of the West. It may be hard to imagine now but Catholics were until relatively recently seen by many much as Muslims are now.

The English philosopher John Locke is generally seen as providing the philosophical foundations of liberalism. His Letter Concerning Toleration is a key text in the development of modern liberal ideas about freedom of expression and worship. But he refused to extend such tolerance to Catholics because they posed a threat to English identity and security. Until the nineteenth century Catholics in Britain were by law excluded from most public offices, and denied the vote; they were barred from universities, from many professions, and from serving in the armed forces. Protestants were banned from converting to Catholicism, and Catholics banned from marrying Protestants.

Such vicious anti-Catholicism existed well into the twentieth century, and not just in Europe. In America, the historian Leo Lucassen observes, Catholicism was perceived as ‘representing an entirely different culture and worldview, and it was feared because of the faith’s global and expansive aspirations’. ‘It is the political character of the Roman Church’, wrote the essayist and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, ‘that makes it incompatible with our institutions & unwelcome here.’

Today the idea of the Judeo-Christian tradition as the foundation of Western civilization is taken as received wisdom. But the concept of a ‘Judeo Christian tradition’ is an invention of the 1930s, arising out o the attempt to create a broad front to challenge the menace of anti-Semitism. Its invention is testament to the fact that, in the eyes of many people, Jews constituted a mortal threat to European identity, values and ways of being, so much so that they became victims of the world’s greatest genocide. The very existence of Castrum Peregrini is testament to that view of Jews as a civilizational menace.

From the creation of the first Ghetto, in Venice, exactly 500 years ago, to Martin Luther’s fulminations against Jewry, to the Dreyfus affair in France, to Britain’s first immigration law, the 1905 Aliens Act, designed principally to stem the flow into the country of East European Jews, a central strand in European historical consciousness was the portrayal of Jews as the elemental ‘Other’.

Europe was rent not just by religious and cultural but by political conflict, too. From the English civil war to the Spanish civil war, from the German Peasants’ rebellion to the Paris commune, European nations were deeply divided. Conflicts between communists and conservatives, liberals and socialists, monarchists and liberals became the hallmark of European societies.

Of course we don’t think of these conflicts as expressions of a diverse society. Why not? Only because we have a restricted view of what diversity entails.

But even within that restricted notion of diversity, our historical picture of European societies is mistaken. We look back upon European societies and imagine that they were racially and ethnically homogenous. But that is not how Europeans of the time looked upon their societies. In the nineteenth century and well into the twentieth, the working class and the rural poor were seen by many as racial distinct.

A vignette of working-class life in Bethnal Green, a working class area of east London, that appeared in an 1864 edition of The Saturday Review, a well-read liberal magazine of the era, was typical of Victorian middle-class attitudes. ‘The Bethnal Green poor’, the article explained, constituted ‘a race of whom we know nothing, whose lives are of quite different complexion from ours, persons with whom we have no point of contact.’ ‘Distinctions and separations, like those of English classes’, the article concluded, ‘which always endure, which last from the cradle to the grave… offer a very fair parallel to the separation of the slaves from the whites.’

There were similar attitudes in France. In a speech in 1857, the Christian socialist Phillipe Buchez wondered how it could happen that ‘within a population such as ours, races may form – not merely one, but several races – so miserable, inferior and bastardised that they may be classed as below the most inferior savage races, for their inferiority is sometimes beyond cure.’ The ‘races’ that caused Buchez such anxiety were not immigrants from Africa or Asia but the rural poor in France.

The concept of a homogenous Europe made diverse by modern immigration crumbles when shake off our historical amnesia. We only imagine our societies as particularly diverse because we rewrite the past, and because a very peculiar definition of what constitutes diversity allows us to ignore the diversity – and the fears and the conflicts – that then existed. European societies have always had, or were perceived to have had, ‘different peoples’ within their borders.

And this brings us to the second question: why should we value diversity, or indeed, fear it? I will return later to the question of why we may wish to value diversity. But I want to begin with the question of why many fear it. Consider two contemporary French thinkers from opposite ends of the political spectrum, for both of whom Islam represents a threat, but for very different reasons: the liberal philosopher Bernard-Henry Lévy and the conservative thinker Pierre Manent.

In 2010, during the debate about whether the burqa should be banned, Lévy came out ‘in favor of a law that clearly and plainly declares that wearing a burqa in the public area is anti-republican’. But, he insisted ‘This is not about the burqa. It’s about Voltaire. What is at stake is the Enlightenment of yesterday and today, and the heritage of both, no less sacred than that of the three monotheisms.’

Where, for Lévy, Islam represents a threat to Enlightenment liberalism, for Manent it is the corrosive impact of Enlightenment liberalism that has allowed Islam to be a threat. The French have no choice but to surrender to Islam, Manent argues, because they have become decadent and ‘tired of freedom’. By emphasizing rights rather than duties, our desiccated democracies have dissolved social bonds leaving nothing but a ‘dust’ of isolated egos. ‘The most striking fact about the present moment’, Manent writes, ‘is the political and spiritual enfeeblement of the nation. … If Islam is extending and consolidating its influence … in a region where all social forms are vulnerable to corrosive critique in the name of individual rights, then there can scarcely be any future for Europe other than Islamization by default.’

Many liberals have echoed Levy’s warnings, many conservatives Manent’s fears. Both view Islam as a threat to European values, but disagree on what values are being threatened. For liberals, conservative Islamic doctrines run counter to the values of the Enlightenment. For conservatives, it precisely the corrosive impact of liberal Enlightenment values that have allowed Islam to triumph.

The fear of diversity, in other words, is itself felt from a diversity of standpoints. And fear of the Other is rooted primarily in anxieties about the Self. The Other becomes a problem – indeed the Other needs only to be conjured up – when there is social apprehension about who we are or what we stand for.

The claim that Islam poses a fundamental threat to Western values draws on the ‘clash of civilizations’ thesis, popularized in the 1990s by the American political scientist Samuel Huntington. The conflicts that have convulsed Europe over the past centuries, Huntington wrote in a famous 1993 essay, from the wars of religion between Protestants and Catholics to the Cold War, were all ‘conflicts within Western civilization’. The ‘battle lines of the future’, on the other hand, would be between civilizations. And the most deep-set of these would be between the Christian West and the Islamic East, a ‘far more fundamental’ struggle than any war unleashed by ‘differences among political ideologies and political regimes’.

Civilizations, however, are not self-enclosed entities. They are ‘civilizations’ precisely because they are porous, fluid, open to wider influences. Because they are open to diversity.

There are no historically transcendent civilizational values. There is a view of European civilization as developing along a linear line from Ancient Greece through the crucible of Christianity to the Enlightenment and modernity. Yet, what many today many describe as ‘European’ values would have left most of the major figures in that European tradition bewildered – Aquinas and Dante, for instance, and even more so Augustine and Plato. On the other hand, Aquinas and Dante certainly would have understood the values of many of their Islamic contemporaries, such as the great philosophers Ibn Sina or Ibn Rushd, values that many would now consider as existential threats to the very being of Europe.

There is, in other words, no single set of European values that transcends history in opposition to Islamic values. Nor is there a single Islamic tradition that transcends history. Norms and practices have inevitably varied over time and space. They inevitably mutated in a faith that has lasted for almost 1500 years. They inevitably diverged in an empire that once stretched from the Bay of Bengal to the Bay of Biscay, and do so even more in a community that is now spread out across the globe from Indonesia (which has the largest Muslim population in the world) to America, from Scotland to South Africa.

Consider a recent poll of British Muslim attitudes that generated a national debate. The poll was conducted for a TV documentary fronted by Trevor Phillips, former head of Britain’s Equalities and Human Rights Commission, and of its predecessor, the Commission for Racial Equality.

The poll revealed a deep well of social conservatism within British Muslim communities. Just 18 per cent of Muslims thought that homosexuality should be legal (compared to 73 per cent of the general population), 4 in 10 thought wives should always obey her husband. A third wanted girls to be educated separately to boys. Almost 9 out ten thought that the law should not permit mockery of the Prophet.

Trevor Phillips, who as head of the EHRC and the CRE played an important role in shaping integration policies, wrote of ‘a chasm opening between Muslims and non-Muslims’ and ‘the unacknowledged creation of a nation within the nation, with its own geography, its own values and its own very separate future.’ Europe’s Muslims, he suggested, were different from previous waves of migrants because they had have refused to ‘abandon their ancestral ways’. ‘The integration of Muslims’, he concluded, ‘will probably be the hardest task we’ve ever faced’.

Seen by itself, the poll might indeed lead one to such a conclusion. But any poll provides at best a snapshot of the views of people in one place, at one time. People, and communities do not, however, exist as a snapshot.

Had you taken this poll 30 years ago, when I was growing up, you would have found very different results. For the contemporary social conservatism of British Muslims has not always been present. The first generation of Muslims to Britain were religious, but wore their faith lightly. Many men drank alcohol. Few women wore a hijab, let alone a burqa or niqab. Most visited the mosque only occasionally, when the ‘Friday feeling’ took them. Islam was not, in their eyes, an all-encompassing philosophy. Their faith expressed for them a relationship with God, not a sacrosanct public identity.

The second generation of Britons with a Muslim background – my generation – was primarily secular. Religious organizations were barely visible. The organizations that bound together Asian communities (and we thought of ourselves as ‘Asian’ or ‘black’, not ‘Muslim’) were primarily secular, often political.

It is only with the generation that has come of age since the late 1980s that the question of cultural differences has come to be seen as important. A generation that, ironically, is far more integrated and ‘Westernised’ than the first generation, is also the generation that is most insistent on maintaining its ‘difference’. Much the same process can be sketched out in France, in Germany, in the Netherlands. It is a paradox that questions the conventional view of the relationship between diversity and integration. Yet it is one that is rarely discussed.

One reason for that is that we rarely take a step back to give ourselves a broader perspective on social problems. What one might call the ‘snapshot’ view of communities and cultures has become central to much of the discussion about diversity and integration. So, Trevor Phillips claimed in his TV documentary that British Muslims ‘don’t want to change’ and ‘still hold views from their ancestral backgrounds’.

The real problem is, in fact, the very opposite. British Muslims have changed. But many have changed by becoming more socially conservative. The question we need to address, therefore, is why has this change taken place? But blinded by a snapshot view of Muslim communities, most policymakers and ask the opposite question: Why hasn’t any change taken place? If we cannot even ask the right questions, it is little wonder that we fail to find the right answers.

At the same time, the fact that significant sections of British Muslim communities have become conservative, even reactionary, on many social and religious issues, does not mean that all have. No community is homogenous. To say that Christians have become more liberal on issues of gay marriage over the past thirty years is not to deny that there is a diversity of Christian views on this issue. The same is true of Muslims. There is evidence that British Muslims have become more polarized on social issues – that a large proportion have become more conservative, while small minority is far more liberal than much of the population at large. There is polling evidence, too, that Muslims in many European countries, and in the USA, are more liberal than Muslims in Britain.

And this leads us to another of the ironies in the way we think of diversity. Many who view society as diverse often fail to see the diversity of minority communities. This is as true of those who welcome diversity as of those who fear or reject it.

Consider social policy in France and Britain. As forms of public policy, French assimilationism and British multiculturalism are generally regarded as polar opposites. Yet, from very different starting points, both kinds of policy have come to foster narrower visions of social identity, and both have tended to ignore the diversity of minority communities, treating them instead as if each was a distinct, homogenous whole, each composed of people all speaking with a single voice, each defined by a singular view of culture and faith.

‘What, in today’s France’, asks the novelist and filmmaker Karim Miské, ‘unites the pious Algerian retired worker, the atheist French-Mauritanian director that I am, the Fulani Sufi bank employee from Mantes-la-Jolie, the social worker from Burgundy who has converted to Islam, and the agnostic male nurse who has never set foot in his grandparents’ home in Oujda?  What brings us together if not the fact that we live within a society which thinks of us as Muslims?’

Of the five million or so French citizens of North African origin, just 40 per cent think of themselves as observant Muslims, and only one in four attend Friday prayers. Yet, Miské observes, all are looked upon by French politicians, policy makers, intellectuals and journalists as ‘Muslims’. Government ministers often talk of France’s ‘five million Muslims’.

The use of ‘Muslim’ as a label for French citizens of North African origin is not accidental. It is part of the process whereby the state casts such citizens as the Other – as not really part of the French nation. Faced, as are politicians in many European nations, with a distrustful and disengaged public, French politicians have attempted to reassert the notion of a common French identity. But unable to define clearly the ideas and values that characterize the nation, they have done so primarily by turning Islam into the ‘Other’ against which French identity is defined.

In his 1945 essay Anti-Semite and Jew, Jean Paul Sartre had suggested that the authentic Jew was created by the anti-Semite. Miské makes the same point about the authentic Muslim: that it is the way that the outside society treats those of North African origin that creates the idea of the authentic Muslim, and indeed of the Muslim community itself.

French citizens of North African origin who do not think of themselves as ‘Muslim’, can, writes Miské, ‘feign indifference’ and ‘appear to be French, secularist and republican, devoted lovers of our land and our territories’. But, he asks ‘how long can we seriously hold on to this voluntary position when we are constantly sent back to our ‘Muslim’ identity?’ In other words, the identity ‘Muslim’ is both created by the wider society, and appropriated by those defined as ‘Muslim’ as a means of asserting their own agency, ‘to regain possession of our diminished existences’, as Miské puts it.

Much the same is true of Britain. British multicultural policies do not, as in France, seek to define national identity against the Other, but rather portray the nation as ‘a community of communities’, as the influential Parekh report on multiculturalism put it. The authorities have attempted to manage diversity by putting people into particular ethnic and cultural boxes, defining individual needs and rights by virtue of the boxes into which people were put, and using those boxes to shape public policy.

Instead of engaging directly with Muslim communities, the authorities have effectively subcontracted out their responsibilities to so-called community leaders. Rather than appealing to Muslims as British citizens like all others, the ‘community of communities’ approach encourages politicians to see them as people whose primarily loyalty is to their faith and who can be politically engaged only by other Muslims. The result has been, as in France, to create a more parochial sense of identity and a more tribal vision of Islam.

One consequence of this perverse way of thinking about diversity is that the most progressive voices within minority communities often get silenced as not being truly of that community or truly authentic, while the most conservative voices get celebrated as community leaders, the authentic voices of minority groups.

The Danish MP Naser Khader tells of a conversation with a journalist who claimed that ‘the Muhammad cartoons insulted all Muslims’. ‘I am not insulted’, Khader responded. ‘But you’re not a real Muslim’, came the reply.

‘You’re not a real Muslim.’ Why? Because to be proper Muslim is, from such a perspective, to be reactionary, to find the Muhammed caricatures offensive. Anyone who isn’t reactionary or offended is by definition not a proper Muslim. Here liberal ‘anti-racism’ meets rightwing anti-Muslim bigotry.

The ways in which we conventionally look upon diversity, then, turn migrants into the Other, stripped of individuality, even, ironically, of diversity. Minority communities have become seen as homogenous groups, denied the possibility of transformation, defined by primarily by culture, faith, and place of origin.

The clash between the reality of living in a diverse society and the official insistence on putting people into cultural or ethnic boxes, and the creation of a more parochial, more tribal sense of identity, can have grave consequences. Consider, for instance, the second issue that, together with the migration crisis, dominates much of contemporary European political discourse: the growth of homegrown jihadists. The recent attacks in Paris and Brussels have brought the two issues together in many people’s minds.

The problem of jihadism, the argument goes, is a problem of migration, because it is the arrival into Europe of those with fundamentally different values and beliefs, and with a hatred European civilization, that lies at the root the European jihadist problem. Close off the borders, stop the influx of Muslims, and Europe will begin to be able to deal with the issue of jihadism within.

It is an argument that flies in the face of the facts. The vast majority of European jihadis are not migrants, but second or generation Europeans, and their relationship with Islam is far from straightforward. A high proportion – up to 30 per cent in France – are converts to Islam.

Many studies show, perhaps counter-intuitively, that individuals are not usually led to jihadist groups by religious faith. A British MI5 ‘Briefing Note’ entitled ‘Understanding radicalisation and extremism in the UK’, leaked to the press in 2008 observed that ‘far from being religious zealots, a large number of those involved in terrorism do not practice regularly’. The French sociologist Olivier Roy similarly observes of contemporary jihadis that ‘Very few of them had a previous story of militancy, either political… or religious’. A Europol review of Changes in modus operandi of Islamic State terrorist attacks also notes the ‘shift away from the religious component in the radicalisation of, especially, young recruits’.

We often look at the issue of European jihadism the wrong way round. We begin with jihadists as they are at the end of their journey – enraged about the West, with a back and white view of Islam, and a distorted moral vision – and often assume that these are the reasons that they have come to be as they are. That is rarely the case.

Few jihadists start off as religious fanatics or as political militants. Radical Islam, and a hatred of West, is not necessarily what draws individuals into jihadism. It is what comes to define and justify that jihadism.

So, if not religion or politics, what is it? ‘The path to radicalization’, as the British researcher Tufyal Choudhury put it in his 2007 report on ‘The Role of Muslim Identity in Radicalization’ ‘often involves a search for identity at a moment of crisis… when previous explanations and belief systems are found to be inadequate in explaining an individual’s experience.’

Jihadists, in other words, begin their journey searching for something a lot less definable: identity, meaning, respect. There is, of course, nothing new in the youthful search for identity and meaning. What is different today is the social context in which this search takes place. We live in a more atomized society than in the past; in an age in which many people feel peculiarly disengaged from mainstream social institutions and in which moral lines often seem blurred and identities distorted.

In the past, disaffection with the mainstream may have led people to join movements for political change, from far-left groups to labour movement organizations to anti-racist campaigns. Such organizations helped both give idealism and social grievance a political form, and a mechanism for turning disaffection into the fuel of social change.

Today, such campaigns and organizations often seem as out of touch as mainstream institutions. What gives shape to contemporary disaffection is not progressive politics, as it may have in the past, but the politics of identity. Identity politics has, over the past three decades, encouraged people to define themselves in increasingly narrow ethnic or cultural terms.

At the same time social policy has, as I have already observed, exacerbated these trends, helping create a more fragmented, tribalized society.

A generation ago, today’s ‘radicalized’ Muslims would probably have been far more secular in their outlook, and their radicalism would have expressed itself through political organizations. They would have regarded their faith as simply one strand in a complex tapestry of self-identity. Many, perhaps most, Muslims still do. But there is a growing number that see themselves as Muslims in an almost tribal sense, for whom the richness of the tapestry of self has given way to an all-encompassing monochrome cloak of faith.

Most homegrown jihadis possess, however, a peculiar relationship with Islam. They are, in many ways, as estranged from Muslim communities as they are from Western societies.  Most detest the mores and traditions of their parents, have little time for mainstream forms of Islam, and cut themselves off from traditional community institutions. Disengaged from both Western societies and Muslim communities, some reach out to Islamism. Many would-be jihadis, Olivier Roy observes, ‘adopt the Salafi version of Islam, because Salafism is both simple to understand (don’ts and do’s)’ and because it is ‘the negation of… the Islam of their parents and of their roots.’ It is not through mosques or religious institutions but through the Internet that most jihadis discover both their faith and their virtual community.

Disembedded from social norms, finding their identity within a small group, shaped by black and white ideas and values, driven by a sense that they must act on behalf of all Muslims and in opposition to all enemies of Islam, it becomes easier for wannabe jihadis to commit acts of horror and to view such acts as part of an existential struggle between Islam and the West.

How, then, should we look upon diversity? I have questioned the fear of diversity. But why, and how, should we value it?

When we talk about diversity, what we mean is that the world is a messy place, full of clashes and conflicts. That is all for the good, for such clashes and conflicts are the stuff of political and cultural engagement.

Diversity is important, not in and of itself, but because it allows us to expand our horizons, to compare and contrast different values, beliefs and lifestyles, make judgments upon them, and decide which may be better and which may be worse. It is important, in other words, because it allows us to engage in political dialogue and debate that can, paradoxically, help create a more universal language of citizenship.

But the very thing that is valuable about diversity – the cultural and ideological clashes that it brings about – is precisely what many fear. That fear can take two forms. On the one hand there is the nativist sentiment: the belief immigration is undermining social cohesion, eroding our sense of national identity, turning our cities into little Lahores or mini-Kingstons.

And on the other there is the multicultural argument, that respect for others requires us to accept their ways of being, and not criticize or challenge their values or practices, but instead to police the boundaries between groups to minimize the clashes and conflicts and frictions that diversity brings in its wake.

The one approach encourages fear, the other indifference. The one approach views migrants as the Other, whose otherness poses a threat to European societies. The other approach views the otherness of migrants as an issue that society must respect and live with.

Few events better express both the fear and the indifference than the fallout from the events of New Year’s Eve in Cologne. Large numbers of women were allegedly that evening robbed and sexually assaulted by men, many of whom were described as being of Arab origin. At first the authorities tried to cover up the events, pretending that nothing had happened. When details eventually emerged there was inevitably outrage.

The authorities’ initial response stemmed not just from a fear of the reaction and of racists exploiting the issue, but also from a sense that such events were inevitable in a diverse society in which different values and beliefs and practices clashed, and it was better quietly to let ‘Arabs be Arabs’ than to have a robust and difficult public debate about the issue. And when the truth began to filter out, public fury was directed not just at the men responsible for the sexual attacks, nor just the authorities who tried to cover up the incident, but also at migrants as a whole, becoming a reason for opposing all migration to Germany. Both perspectives view migrants as the Other, as people fundamentally different from Us, though they differ in how deal with the otherness. Fear and indifference, indifference and fear, twisted into a tight knot.

What neither approach begins to address is the question of engagement. Engagement requires us neither to shun certain people as the Other with values, beliefs and practices that are inevitably and fundamentally inimical to ours, nor to be indifferent to the values and beliefs and practices of others in the name of ‘respect’, but rather to recognize that respect requires us to challenge, even confront, that values and beliefs of others. It requires us to have an robust, open public debate about the values, beliefs and practices to which we aspire, accepting that such a debate will be difficult, and often confrontational, but also that such difficult confrontational debate is a necessity in any society that seeks to be open and liberal.

The retreat from engagement is perhaps best expressed in one of the most explosive issues of recent times – that of free speech, and the question of where one draws the boundaries, especially in the giving of offence. From the global controversy over the Danish cartoons to the brutal slaughter at the offices of Charlie Hebdo, the question of what is, and should be, acceptable in a plural society has become one of the defining conundrums of our age.

There has come to be an acceptance in many European nations that it is morally wrong to give offence to those of different cultures or faiths or beliefs. For diverse societies to function and to be fair, so the argument runs, we need to show respect not just for individuals but also for the cultures and beliefs in which those individuals are embedded and which helps give them a sense of identity and being. This requires that we police public discourse about those cultures and beliefs, both to minimize friction between antagonistic groups and to protect the dignity of those individuals embedded in them.

As the British sociologist Tariq Modood has put it, that ‘If people are to occupy the same political space without conflict, they mutually have to limit the extent to which they subject each others’ fundamental beliefs to criticism.’ One of the ironies of living in a plural society, it would seem, is that the preservation of diversity requires us to leave less room for a diversity of views.

I take the opposite view. It is precisely because we do live in a plural society that we need the fullest extension possible of free speech, because it is both inevitable and important that people offend the sensibilities of others. Inevitable, because where different beliefs are deeply held, clashes are unavoidable. Almost by definition such clashes express what it is to live in a diverse society.   And so they should be openly resolved than suppressed in the name of ‘respect’ or ‘tolerance’.

But more than this: the giving of offence is not just inevitable, it is also important. Any kind of social change or social progress means offending some deeply held sensibilities. Or to put it another way: ‘You can’t say that!’ is all too often the response of those in power to having their power challenged. To accept that certain things cannot be said is to accept that certain forms of power cannot be challenged.

The notion of giving offence suggests that certain beliefs are so important or valuable to certain people that they should be put beyond the possibility of being insulted, or caricatured or even questioned. The importance of the principle of free speech is precisely that it provides a permanent challenge to the idea that some questions are beyond contention, and hence acts as a permanent challenge to authority. Once we give up the right to offend in the name of ‘tolerance’ or ‘respect’, we constrain our ability to confront those in power, and therefore to challenge injustice.

It is not, however, simply Muslim, or minority, sensibilities that should be able to be offended. Liberal or European sensitivities, too, should be open to affront. Yet, too often those who demand the right of newspapers or novelists to offend Muslims, often are less robust when it comes to views that may offend liberal norms. Double standards are rife.

In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks, the French government organized a march through Paris in defence of free speech, a march that was attended by over a million and a half people and 40 world leaders. It also arrested more than 50 people, including the comedian Dieudonné, for seemingly showing sympathy with the gunmen. In the Netherlands, Geert Wilders presents himself as a warrior for free speech. But he wants to ban the Qur’an because he considers it hate speech. Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that published the Muhammad cartoons had, a few years earlier, refused to publish cartoons about Jesus by the caricaturist Christoffer Zieler because they might ‘provoke an outcry’. And so it goes on.

The fundamental importance of free speech is that it is the very material of social engagement. When we restrain freedom of expression what we are really restraining is the capacity for social engagement. But social engagement has to be a two-way street, or it is nothing at all. Double standards undermine the very possibility of real engagement.

So, finally, let me return to the question that is the title of this talk: how should we live in a diverse society?

First, we need to recognize how narrow a view of diversity we have today. And that our narrow concept of diversity is at the very heart of many of our problem. If we look upon our differences in political or moral terms, they are often negotiable. If we see them in ethnic or cultural or religious terms, almost by definition they are not. Our peculiar perception of diversity has therefore made social conflict more intractable.

Second, we need to combat the pernicious impact of identity politics, and of the way that social policies have accentuated that pernicious impact. The combination of the two has ensured that social solidarity has become increasingly defined not in political terms – as collective action in pursuit of certain political ideals – but in terms of ethnicity or culture. The answer to the question ‘In what kind of society do I want to live?’ has become shaped less by the kinds of values or institutions we want to establish, than by the group or tribe to which we imagine we belong. From this perspective, diversity becomes a prison rather than the raw material for social engagement.

Third, we need to recognize that the issue of social fracturing is not simply an issue of migration or of minority communities. One of the features of contemporary Europe is the disaffection that many have with mainstream politics and mainstream institutions. It is one of the reasons for the rise of populist and far right groups, a disaffection fuelled by a host of social and political changes, that have left many, particularly from traditional working class backgrounds, feeling politically abandoned and voiceless, and detached from mainstream society.

There are certainly issues specific to immigrants and minority communities, but they are best understood in the context of the wider debate about the relationship between individuals, communities and society. Societies have become fragmented because these relationships have frayed, and not just for minority communities.

Finally, a guiding assumption throughout Europe has been that immigration and integration must be managed through state policies and institutions. Yet real integration, whether of immigrants or of indigenous groups, is rarely brought about by the actions of the state. Indeed , the attempts by the state to manage diversity has been at the heart of many of the problems.

Real integration is shaped primarily by civil society, by the individual bonds that people form with one another, and by the organizations they establish to further their shared political and social interests. It is the erosion of such bonds and institutions that has proved so problematic and that explains why social disengagement is a feature not simply of immigrant communities but of the wider society, too. To repair the damage that disengagement has done, and to revive what I call a progressive universalism, we need, not so much new state policies, as a renewal of civil society.

 

Een ingekorte Nederlandse versie van deze tekst verscheen tevens in De Groene Amsterdammer van 26 Mei 2016.

A Laboratory Fever

Jussi Parikka

about What Is A Media Lab

Tuesday 24 May 2016

Prof. Jussi Parikka about A Laboratory Fever, lecture Tuesday 24 May, 16hrs. This talk is part of the larger research and book project with his colleagues Lori Emerson and DarJussi Parikkaren Wershler, and most of their research process is documented on the What is a Media Lab-website.
In her historical contextualisation of the laboratory (“The Laboratory Challenge”), Ursula Klein puts it in rather clear terms: the laboratory was not merely a place of pure science and before the institutionalisation of the site since the 19th century as part of the scientific set up, it had many artisanal connotations as well.

A program presented in cooperation with Universiteit Utrecht, Institute for Cultural Inquiries and Universiteit van Amsterdam, Mediastudies

Listen here to Jussi Parikka’s lecture, recorded by Mariela Cantú

 

Jussi-Poster-Final

 

Burning Diary: An Architect’s Exile

Vrijdag 17, Zaterdag 18 en Zondag 19 Juni 2016

Opening met toespraak van Frank van Vree, decaan UvA zaterdag 18 juni, 14 uur.
Open  Vrijdag 17, Zaterdag 18 en Zondag 19 Juni, 14.00 – 18.00 uur.
 Burning Diary 18 en 19 JuneStudenten van het Honours Programma van de faculteit der Geesteswetenschappen van de Universiteit van Amsterdam presenteren op 18 en 19 juni 2016 in Castrum Peregrini het Burning Diary van de architect Miloš Bobić.

Bobić hield gedurende vijfentwintig jaar een getekend dagboek bij. De architect en stedebouwkundige, die in 1992 als balling in Amsterdam kwam wonen, gedesillusioneerd door de verharding van het maatschappelijke debat in zijn geboortestad Belgrado, tekende op luciferdoosjes, in totaal ongeveer achttienhonderd stuks, de weerslag van een leven tussen de steden Belgrado en Amsterdam. De tekeningen tonen alledaagse indrukken, ontwerpen voor gebouwen, en ook politieke overpeinzingen, over het conflict in Joegoslavië, over het leven van een balling, over het universele karakter van stedelijkheid. Het is inmiddels meer dan vijftien jaar geleden dat dit uitzonderlijke werk in Amsterdam is geëxposeerd.

In hun presentaties gaan de studenten op zoek naar manieren om het getekende dagboek van Bobić te contextualiseren en actualiseren. Ze onderzoeken het werk van Bobić in het licht van de ‘grensintellectueel’ (Edward Said), of: hoe de architect, stedenbouwkundige, denker en kosmopolitisch burger het aanzicht van zijn oude en zijn nieuwe leefomgeving wezenlijk beinvloedde.

Friday 17, Saturday 18 and Sunday 19 June 2016

Vernissage with Frank van Vree, dean UvA , Saturday 18 June, 14 hrs.
Friday 17 June, Saturday 18 June and Sunday 19 juni open from 14.00-18.00.

Students of the Honours Programme of the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Amsterdam present Burning Diary by architect Miloš Bobić in Castrum Peregrini on 17, 18 and 19 June.

For twenty five years Bobić kept a written diary. The architect and urbanist, who came as an exile to Amsterdam in 1992, disillusioned by the rise of nationalism in his city of birth Belgrade, drew images from a life between two cities on more than 1.800 match boxes. The drawings reveal everyday impressions, designs for buildings, political thoughts about the war in Yugoslavia, about life in exile, about the universal character of city life. It is for the first time in more than fifteen years that the diary is on display in Amsterdam.

The students search in their presentations for ways to contextualize and actualize Bobić’s diary. Their starting point is the notion of the ‘border intellectual’ (Edward Said), or: how an architect, urbanist, thinker and cosmopolitan citizen changed the face of both his old and new surroundings.

Castrum Peregrini

Herengracht 401, entrance Beulingstraat.

 

Vreihijd

Het magazine VREIHIJD wordt op 3 mei gepresenteerd tijdens de openingsavond van In Me, the Paradox of Liberty: Donderdag 3 mei, 20uur SMART Project Space.

VREIHIJD gaat over de verwarring rondom het begrip vrijheid. Met bijdragen van Zygmunt Bauman, Thomas von der Dunk, Hedy d’Ancona, Marietje Schaake, Machiel Keestra, Maartje Wortel, A.H.J. Dautzenberg, Rutger Claassen, Mahammad Enait, Mark Mieras, Joost Conijn, Petra Stienen e.a.

Een exemplaar is gratis verkijgbaar bij Castrum Peregrini, klik hier om in te zien!

< Back to all Memory Machine publications

Stadsleven excursie

Het Huis van Gise╠Çle 45 onlineTwee historische etages in het huis van Castrum Peregrini kunnen tijdens de Stadsleven excursie op 30 mei worden bezocht. Dat zijn de authentieke onderduik etage waar zij kwam wonen in 1940, en de salon van Gisèle, die dateert uit de jaren ’50. Deze historische vertrekken van Castrum Peregrini zijn nog geenszins dagelijks geopend en behoren nog tot de verborgen stad, waar een culturele wereld samenkomt.

interieur gisele salonBen je geïnteresseerd om maandag 30 mei van 17.00-18.00 uur deel te nemen aan de excursie door Castrum Peregrini? Klik dan hier voor meer informatie en koop je kaartje.

 

Castrum Peregrini – Made in Amsterdam

Bezoek Castrum Peregrini met een speciaal arrangement i.s.m. Amsterdam Museum en Artifex

 

madeinamsterdam

Vrijdag 17 & 24 juni
Uitverkocht!
11 – 12:30 uur

Extra datum: vrijdag 22 juli
11 uur en 13 uur

Castrum Peregrini is featured in Made in Amsterdam, the current exhibition of the Amsterdam Museum, as one of the 5 houses representing the role of Amsterdam for the arts in the last hundred years.

interieur gisele salon

Het programma begint om 11.00 uur of 13:00 uur en is inclusief:
Rondleiding Castrum Peregrini door gids.  Stadswandeling met gids van Artifex Amsterdam als Kunststad.  Koffie met taart in het vernieuwde museum café Mokum (gids Artifex is aanwezig). Tentoonstellingsbezoek Made In Amsterdam op eigen gelegenheid.

Prijzen: € 20,00 Personen met Museumkaart. € 32,50 Personen zonder Museumkaart

Bestel uw toegangskaarten bij Artifex, klik hier.

plaque honouring Gisèle

Monday 2 May 2016 >>> festive program on the occasion of ‘the House of Gisèle’;

plaque at the façade and speeches by Job Cohen (Chair Amsterdams Comité 4 en 5 mei, advisory board CP) , Michael Defuster (director CP), Bart Rutten (Head Collections Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam) and Jorrit Nuijens (city council Amsterdam)

pictures by Maarten Nauw

Het Huis van Gisèle 08 online Het Huis van Gisèle 11 online Het Huis van Gisèle 12 online Het Huis van Gisèle 28 online Het Huis van Gisèle 31 online Het Huis van Gisèle 34 online Het Huis van Gisèle 39 online Het Huis van Gisèle 40 online Het Huis van Gisèle 42 online Het Huis van Gisèle 45 online Het Huis van Gisèle 47 online Het Huis van Gisèle 56 online Het Huis van Gisèle 78 online

Radio 1 bezoekt het Huis van Gisèle

Marc Robin Visscher interviews Marjan Schwegman (member Advisory board of Castrum Peregrini) and Frans Damman for NPO Radio 1 Cultuur Friday 29 april – listen back here  Herengracht401 (2)

Toespraak Job Cohen 2 Mei 2016

JCDit jaar is het 75 jaar geleden dat Gisèle haar huis openstelde voor onderduikers. Tot op de dag van vandaag wordt het Castrum Peregrini genoemd, de schuilnaam van het ondergrondse bestaan destijds.

Gisèle’s drijfveer was haar overtuiging en haar geloof in menselijkheid.

Tegen het aanraden in van haar vriend en mentor Adriaan Roland Holst schreef ze zich niet in bij de Kulturkammer, ondanks het aanbod voor  het voorzitterschap van de sectie glas in lood. Daardoor kon zij haar beroep als kunstenaar niet meer uitoefenen. Ze volgde haar leermeester Joep Nicolas niet naar diens ballingschap in New York. Ze wilde familie en vrienden niet achter laten. In deze kwetsbare positie nam ze  twee joodse onderduikers op in huis en later menig jongen die voor de Arbeidseinsatz ging schuilen. Gevraagd naar haar motivatie antwoordde ze steevast: “Ik laat hen toch niet afslachten als kippen.” Was dit naïviteit of handelde ze weloverwogen? Intuïtie of rationaliteit? Gedreven door de omstandigheden of overtuiging? Opvoeding of instinct?

Hoe dan ook, Gisèle vond het nooit iets bijzonders. Voor haar was het belangrijk om ondanks alle moeilijke omstandigheden een menselijke wereld te scheppen, hoe klein dan ook. Haar appartement op drie hoog werd een realiteitsbubbel die alle dreigingen van Razzia’s trotseerde, waar ondanks kou en honger een groepje jongeren en hun helpers bij elkaar waren en zich verbonden voelden door hun noodlot èn door de kunst die hen bezighield. Het raamwerk hiervoor was door Gisèle geschapen. Zij kon een sfeer scheppen waarin schoonheid en vertrouwen de ruimte kregen. Dat deed ze samen met haar vriend Wolfgang Frommel en met velen uit haar netwerk, zoals Eep Roland Holst en Max Beckmann. Het verbindende vermogen van kunst en cultuur wist Gisèle als geen ander te bespelen.

Ondanks alle trauma’s van de oorlogstijd en de ontwortelde zoektocht van de groep na de bevrijding kon Gisèle toch de bindende en scheppende kracht van de kunst, ook in de periode na de oorlog, verder gebruiken en dit huis aan de onderduikergroep ter beschikking stellen. Om de originele onderduikvertrekken uit de Tweede Wereldoorlog heen groeide haar huis steeds verder. Etage na etage kon ze vormgeven en gebruiken als atelier, of als woonvertrekken voor haar en oud-burgermeester Arnold d’Ailly en voor haar onderduikers die al dan niet tijdelijk weer hier kwamen wonen om aan het tijdschrift Castrum Peregrini te werken. Er ontstond een illuster netwerk van kunstenaars en intellectuelen die tot op de dag van vandaag hun sporen hebben achtergelaten. Toen Gisèle in 2013 op 100-jarige leeftijd overleed had de jongere generatie reeds een cultureel programma opgetuigd dat het heden bevraagt op basis van het verleden van dit huis: hoe was de ontmenselijking mogelijk tòen, en wat is er nodig om weerbaar en met moed in zo’n situatie  menselijk te blijven? De stichting van Gisèle heeft dat in culturele programma’s uitgediept, met het verhaal en de persoon van haar oprichtster in hun midden.

Het wegvallen van de eerste generatie, die de oorlog zelf heeft meegemaakt, beïnvloedt de manier waarop wij de Tweede Wereldoorlog  herinneren. Ook de grote veranderingen die het ontstaan van een digitale wereld met zich meebrengt en, niet in de laatste plaats, de wetenschap dat we steeds meer leven in een wereld waarin oorlog van invloed is op ons leven, speelt een rol.

De Tweede Wereldoorlog en stilstaan bij wat zich toen afspeelde mag in Nederland nog steeds rekenen op grote belangstelling. Deze belangstelling neemt niet af, maar verandert wel. Door het wegvallen van de ooggetuigen wordt herinnering geschiedenis. Vanwege haar gewichtige betekenis is het onze collectieve verantwoordelijkheid om de herinnering aan de Tweede Wereldoorlog te behouden. Het mag geen geschiedenis worden die behouden blijft in boeken, maar geen waarde heeft voor het heden. Het collectief verbindende trauma kan een collectief verbindende toekomst voeden.

Met het wegvallen van de eerste generatie zijn het niet meer de mensen zelf die kunnen spreken, maar hetgeen zij ons hebben nagelaten. En Gisèle heeft ons iets unieks nagelaten, originele interieurs uit de onderduiktijd, een bijbehorend archief en een verhaallijn die zich heeft ontwikkeld tot op de dag van vandaag.

Hier in dit huis komen software en hardware samen. Dat het verhaal van Gisèle en haar onderduikers zichtbaar en voelbaar is op deze bijzondere plek maakt het een unieke combinatie. De hardware is authentiek, niets is gereconstrueerd, alles is echt, van de pianola waarin Buri, één van de onderduikers, verstopt zat, tot de boekenkasten met de lectuur voor de lange onderduiknachten achter de verduisterde ramen. Het is nu aan haar erfgenamen, om deze kwetsbare parel te ontsluiten: het pand en de interieurs te conserveren en te restaureren en daarmee deze lieu de mémoir voor een breed publiek toegankelijk te maken. Castrum Peregrini begeeft zich daarmee op het veld van herinneringsinstellingen die actief naar synergie zoeken en lacunes willen vullen, zoals beschreven in het rapport van de commissie Versterking Herinnering WOII uit 2015 waarvan ik voorzitter was.

Dit kan van grote meerwaarde zijn voor het levendig houden van de herinnering aan de Tweede Wereldoorlog in de educatieve sector. Juist door die software op passende wijze te verbinden aan de hardware “om de hoek” ontstaat een tastbare herinnering met een heldere betekenis voor jong en oud.

Vandaag wordt deze plek kenbaar gemaakt voor de voorbijganger door een plaquette te onthullen die Gisèle’s naam ook zichtbaar aan dit huis koppelt. Het is de eerste symbolische stap om het huis in de komende jaren te restaureren en te laden met de betekenis van stille helden, waarvan Gisèle een aansprekend voorbeeld is. Een voorbeeld dat ook in onze huidige tijd een inspiratiebron is voor mensen die op zoek zijn naar een moreel kompas om hun weg te bepalen in een maatschappij die haar zelfverzekerde oriëntatie kwijt lijkt te zijn.

Om dat doel te bereiken dienen er forse inspanningen geleverd te worden op financieel, politiek en publicitair gebied. Om dat voor elkaar te krijgen heeft Castrum Peregrini een Comité van Aanbeveling bijeengebracht dat dit initiatief kracht wilt verlenen. Ikzelf neem met plezier zitting in het comité en spreek ook namens de andere leden van het Comité:

Marjan Schwegman, Ronny Naftaniel, Maya Meijer Bergmans, Avrum Burg en Eric Fischer, vandaag bijna volledig aanwezig.

Dit comité zal de drie fases van het proces adviserend begeleiden:

  • Fase 1 tussen nu en mei 2017, dat zich zal richten op onderzoek, fundraising, plannen en vergunningen.
  • Fase 2 tot mei 2019, dat zal focussen op het toegankelijk maken van deze ruimten. Denk daarbij aan een lift en dergelijke. De rest van het gebouw zal gereed moeten worden gemaakt voor zijn nieuwe taak.
  • Fase 3 zal gaan om conservering en restauratiewerkzaamheden van de historische interieurs in het gebouw Herengracht 401. Wij hopen daarmee het hele proces af te sluiten in de zomer van 2020.

Hiervoor is alle hulp nodig die maar te bedenken valt: geld, expertise en netwerk. Ik doe daarom een beroep op alle aanwezigen om naar eigen vermogen mee te helpen.

Velen van de hier aanwezigen hebben Gisèle gekend. Ze was tot aan haar dood een markante figuur in het Amsterdamse. Iedereen herkende haar meteen wanneer ze op straat liep; met iedereen, bouwvakker of burgemeester, maakte ze even makkelijk empathisch contact. Met iedereen beleefde ze wel een moment. Vaak ging het om iets gezamenlijk te bekijken. De schoonheid van een veertje voor je voeten op straat kon ze even sterk beleven als een Picasso in het museum. Belangrijk was dat ze dat samen met jòu deed, dat ze een band kon opbouwen met iemand, altijd via de kunst, via iets samen doen, beleven of scheppen. Die houding heeft haar en anderen geholpen in de oorlog en die houding heeft haar dit juweeltje van een huis helpen creëren. Deze menselijke houding was het die haar alles liet nalaten aan een stichting, opdat het ten goede zou komen aan de maatschappij. Laten we daar gezamenlijk verder aan werken.

 

Job Cohen

2 mei 2016

Toespraak Michael Defuster voor onthulling plaquette Gisele

KnipselGeachte aanwezigen,

Ons bestuurslid Erik Somers heeft in zijn boek De Oorlog in Het Museum overtuigend aangetoond dat onze maatschappij in het laatste decennium een stijgende behoefte laat zien aan informatie en beleving van alles wat met de herinnering aan de tweede Wereldoorlog te maken heeft. Dat zegt iets over de veranderingen in onze tijd, maar ook over ons, mensen, als wezens die gekenmerkt worden door geweten en moraal. En die twee invalshoeken zijn nauw met elkaar verbonden.

De huidige sociale turbulentie en morele onzekerheid beperken zich niet tot de Nederlandse maatschappij maar zijn in de gehele Westerse wereld fenomenen die inmiddels welbekende oorzaken hebben: ondermeer door toedoen van het internet en de opkomst van nieuwe economische mogendheden dringt globalisering de relativiteit op van de Westerse kapitalistische en democratische cultuur en wereldvisie; massa immigratie ontregelt gevestigde maatschappelijke structuren en stelt gekoesterde Westerse waarden op de proef; de toenemende kloof tussen rijk en arm en tussen hoog en laag opgeleiden tast de maatschappelijke cohesie aan. Het verbaast nauwelijks dat de behoefte aan een duidelijke toekomstvisie en aan daadkracht om de problemen aan te pakken maatschappij breed groeit, ware het niet dat de huidige politieke stromingen die de voorkeur genieten bij menig kiezer een ongemakkelijk makend déja vue gevoel veroorzaken.

Kenan Malik, die vanavond de gast is van Castrum Peregrini als spreker, en ondermeer de auteur is van The Quest For A Moral Compass, waarin hij de geschiedenis beschrijft van de filosofische zoektocht van de mensheid naar wat goed en wat kwaad is, komt tot de misschien schokkende maar geenszins onverwachte conclusie dat het tot de menselijke conditie behoort dat er geen moreel veiligheidsnet bestaat. Geen god, geen wetenschappelijke wetmatigheid, noch een solide ethisch stelsel kan ons beschermen van het gevaar om te struikelen tijdens de morele evenwichtsoefening die we als menselijke wezens gedoemd zijn uit te voeren. Dit inzicht kan zeer verontrustend, of juist zeer opwindend zijn. En die keuze ligt bij onszelf.

Vandaag zijn we hier samengekomen om Gisèle d’ Ailly- van Waterschoot van der Gracht te eren als stille held. Tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog liet ze belangeloos Joodse en Nederlandse jongeren onderduiken in haar appartementje driehoog in dit pand. Het verzet dat Gisèle daarmee pleegde was in feite ontstaan doordat ze vasthield aan wat zijzelf “gewoon” vond, zoals Marjan Schwegman het formuleert in het boekje Moedige Mensen van Jaap Cohen en Hinke Piersma. Maar is vasthouden aan wat je “gewoon” vindt, in de zin zoals Marjan Schwegman het bedoeld, niet hetzelfde als integriteit?

En onze tijd snakt naar integriteit. Het politieke toneel is te vaak een demasqué geworden van de geheime agenda’s die het eigenbelang en de ongeïnteresseerdheid in de anderen verhullen. De onvrede over de misleiding en de onmacht uit zich momenteel in alarmerende fenomenen, zoals de opkomst van extremisme en populisme: gevaarlijke oneliners die de schijn wekken van oprechtheid en betrokkenheid, waarmee een angstige en onzekere mensheid gedreven wordt naar “de sterke leider”. Deze gang van zaken heeft veel reminiscenties met de jaren twintig en dertig uit de vorige eeuw, de aanloop naar de Tweede Wereldoorlog, de tijd van Gisèle’s jeugd. Zijn de democratische en supranationale structuren, die sindsdien zijn opgebouwd en tot voor kort onverwoestbaar leken, bestand tegen de veelvuldige aanvallen van binnenuit? Niemand die hierop het antwoord weet natuurlijk en hopelijk is het niet nodig dat de tijd dit zal uitwijzen. De vraag stellen echter onderstreept het belang van moedige en integere mensen zoals Gisèle, die uiteindelijk het geloof in een betere wereld in stand houden en tot op heden een voorbeeld zijn voor mensen die op zoek zijn naar een ethisch kader of naar manieren om hun eigen levensinstelling aan te passen aan de nieuwe realiteiten die zich aandienen.

De onthulling over enkele ogenblikken van een plaquette aan de voorgevel van dit pand, door Job Cohen, staat ook symbool voor de aanvang van een nieuw leven voor dit gebouw, het Huis van Gisèle’s, dat ze heeft nagelaten als een met boeiende en waargebeurde verhalen gevuld juwelenkistje. Hoe klein dit pand ook mag lijken, bij nader onderzoek verbluft de horizontale en verticale reikwijdte telkens weer. Een historische sensatie noemde de Museumkijker de vertrekken en het archief onlangs. In deze authentieke interieurs wordt zichtbaar en voelbaar hoe personages uit de intellectuele en artistieke milieus uit de jaren dertig, veertig en vijftig, bij elkaar genegenheid, bescherming en inspiratie zochten, in het toevluchtsoord dat Gisèle voor hen bouwde en tot haar dood in 2013 hoedde. Met hulp van het aanwezige comité van aanbeveling wil de huidige generatie van Castrum Peregrini Gisèle’s werk verderzetten. Job Cohen zal hier straks op terug komen.

Het Huis van Gisèle is een unieke plek dat een heroïsch verleden combineert met acute maatschappelijke vraagstukken. De drijvende kracht achter de activiteiten is het onvoorwaardelijk geloof in een maatschappij waarin niemand buitengesloten wordt en die diversiteit en gelijkheid omhelst als voorwaarden voor vooruitgang.

Vandaag de dag is het een levendig huis dat vanuit haar verleden en onder de noemer Memory Machine, debat, publicaties en tentoonstellingen organiseert. Diepgang is daarbij het sleutelwoord. Elk individu is een “database” aan herinneringen die in hoge mate diens identiteit bepalen. Dit geldt ook voor groepen en maatschappijen als geheel. In ons individueel en collectief geheugen ligt de sleutel tot datgene waarmee we ons identificeren en tot dat wat we als vreemd ervaren. Inclusie en exclusie vinden daar hun bestaansgrond, en het merkwaardige daarbij is dat dit helemaal niet vastligt zoals we intuïtief plegen te denken.

Geheel in navolging van Gisèle richt Castrum Peregrini zich op een publiek van experts: de creatieve makers, de opinieleiders, de wetenschappers, de maatschappelijk geëngageerden, kortom, de dragers van de belofte van een betere wereld. In de internationale denktank Intellectual Playground verzamelen en delen we met hen kennis over de menselijke conditie, die duistere en zuivere kanten heeft, die zowel in staat is tot genocide of tot bloeiende maatschappijen. Met hen zoeken we naar antwoorden op de vele vragen die de morele dubbelzinnigheid van de menselijke soort oproept. Vanavond levert Kenan Malik hieraan alvast zijn bijdrage in het avondprogramma dat om acht uur begint op de locatie Spui 25.

De historische interieurs van Het Huis van Gisèle worden vandaag officieel opengesteld. Op onze vernieuwde website wordt omschreven hoe men toegang krijgt. We beginnen klein. Voor grote groepen mensen zijn de ruimtes vooralsnog niet geschikt. Conserveringsmaatregelen, toegankelijkheid e.d. dienen in de loop van de komende jaren onder handen genomen te worden. Maar we willen de uniciteit en het educatieve potentieel ervan alvast onder de aandacht brengen.

De onthulling door Job Cohen van de plaquette die Gisèle eert is de symbolische eerste stap hiertoe. Laten we niet langer wachten en nu naar buiten wandelen, naar de Herengrachtkant van dit pand.

Persbericht: authentieke onderduiketage opengesteld voor publiek

authentieke  onderduiketage opengesteld voor publiek

samenwerking stedelijk museum amsterdam en ‘het huis van gisèle’


interieur gisele salonEen ‘historische sensatie’ noemt MuseumKijker in maart 2016 de vertrekken van de kunstenares Gisèle d’Ailly van Waterschoot van der Gracht (1912 – 2013).  Eerder schreef NRC: ‘Vraagt u mij waarom kunst eigenlijk nodig is, dan neem ik u mee naar de nog steeds intacte etages op de Herengracht in Amsterdam, waar de kracht van vriendschap en verbeelding mensenlevens redde.’ 

Voor het eerst is het mogelijk om de privé woonvertrekken van Gisèle te bezoeken.  Op maandag 2 mei onthult Job Cohen een plaquette aan de gevel ter ere van haar stille heldenrol en kondigt Castrum Peregrini een bijzondere samenwerking aan met het Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam . Het betreft de adoptie van het vijfluik ‘Moira’ (1956) in de collectie van het Stedelijk, met behoud van locatie in Gisèle’s salon. Een unieke verbinding waarmee de beide instellingen de verantwoordelijkheid van het behoud van Gisèle’s werk voor het publiek en de stad Amsterdam op zich nemen. 

De intact gebleven etage waar Gisèle onbaatzuchtig onderduikers in huis nam vanaf 1942, de salon waar zij met oud-burgemeester Arnold d’ Ailly vanaf eind jaren ’50 woonde en Gisèle’s atelier waar zij tot het einde van haar leven doorbracht, tonen haar werken en vertellen de geschiedenis van Amsterdam als toevluchtsoord voor kunstenaars en vrijhaven voor cultuur. Adriaan Roland Holst, Max Beckmann, Marguerite Yourcenar en vele anderen hebben daar tijdens en na de oorlog hun sporen achtergelaten.

Bart Rutten, Hoofd Collecties Stedelijk Museum: “Met het accepteren van de gift, om de prachtige panelen “Moira“ in gedeeld eigendom in de collectie van het Stedelijk Museum op te nemen, kunnen we onze expertise in behoud en conservering delen met deze bijzondere plek, die relevant is gebleken voor de internationale kunstgeschiedenis. Hiermee onderstreept het Stedelijk het cultuur- en kunsthistorische belang van het oeuvre dat Gisèle opbouwde. Tevens wordt hiermee de waardevolle verbinding zichtbaar tussen het Stedelijk Museum en kunstinstelling Castrum Peregrini. Met de openstelling van het Huis van Gisèle, waar “Moira” te zien zal blijven, wordt een Amsterdams ‘toevluchtsoord’ voor kunstenaars ontsloten. Het werd ruim 70 jaar  bewoond door Gisèle en getuigt in de traditie van de Modernen voluit van haar leven in uitwisseling met haar internationale vriendennetwerk van kunstenaars, schrijvers en wetenschappers, waaronder Max Beckmann, een icoon uit de collectie van het Stedelijk.”

Haar huis vertelt ook wat kunst toevoegt in moeilijke tijden, door in tijden van uitsluiting, inclusief te denken. Castrum Peregrini geeft die erfenis vorm door de geest van Gisèle levend te houden in hetzelfde pand. Met haar programmering, het bezoekersprogramma en de introductie van de Gisèle Prijs vestigt zij de aandacht op de rol van kunstenaars en cultuur voor een inclusieve maatschappij. Om de verbinding tussen het verleden en heden tastbaar te maken, neemt de stichting nu het initiatief om de openstelling van het huis voor een breder publiek mogelijk te maken. De leden van het Comité van Aanbeveling steken hun schouders onder dit initiatief, te weten: Job Cohen, Marjan Schwegman, Eric Fischer, Maya Meijer Bergmans, Ronny Nathaniël en Avraham Burg.

Maandag 2 mei onthult Job Cohen de plaquette aan de gevel Herengracht 401 en licht de plannen toe betreffende de publieke openstelling van Het Huis van Gisèle. De ceremonie is in aanwezigheid van Bart Rutten, hoofd collecties Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, die de unieke samenwerking met Castrum Peregrini zal toelichten. Jorrit Nuijens vertegenwoordigt de Gemeenteraad van Amsterdam.

Tijdens het avondprogramma voor publiek toegankelijk, zal de internationaal gevierde neurobioloog en schrijver Kenan Malik een inhoudelijk betoog houden voor een inclusieve maatschappij.

Voor de pers: u kunt zich aanmelden voor een begeleide rondleiding, hiervoor maken we graag een persoonlijke afspraak. Ook voor meer informatie, tekst of beeld , kunt u contact opnemen.

Castrum Peregrini,

Frans Damman

f.damman@castrumperegrini.nl

020 6235287 of 06 23367491

Exhibition: Read my Lips!

Read my Lips!

The True Story Behind The Representation of the Death of Osama bin Laden

ronald-ophuis_the-following_cropArtists: Nedko Solakov, Enrique Marty, Harald de Bree, Shepard Fairey, Miguel Aguirre, Marc Bijl, Alejandro Quiroga, Johan Wahlstrom, Kepa Garraza, Mariana Najmanovich, Ronald Ophuis, Eugenio Merino, Antonio Cortés Rolón, Ben Dean, Jorge García, Jeanne Susplugas, Carlos T-Mori, Armando Mariño, Gabriel Escalante, Pedro Barbeito, Nicola Verlato, Prem Sarjo, Pedro Tyler
Curator: Paco Barragán
Vernissage donderdag 28 april, 17 uur
open t/m 9 juni
maandag t/m vrijdag 12-18 uur

The death of Osama bin Laden was announced on television on the night of Sunday, May 1, 2012 at 23:30 (ECT). President Barack Obama addressed the nation from the East Wing of the White House.
To date, we have not seen the “corpus delicti,” just an image of Obama and his team in the White House’s Situation Room staring off camera while the operation unfolds.
Kepa Garraza The Burial 3 (study) 2016 oil on canvas 70x100cm Courtesy the artistIs it important that Obama and the Government of the United States disclose images of bin Laden’s corpse? Is the President’s verbal description of the burial and death of bin Laden enough?
Read my Lips! The True Story Behind the Representation of the Death of Osama bin Laden is an international group show with an interdisciplinary approach that sets out to give answer to these questions by analyzing diverse visual texts, with different levels of iconicity, discursivity and credibility.
The exhibition as such is divided in three sections: 1) The Situation Room—The Reenactment of a Fiction, 2) The Abbottabad Compound—The Reconstruction of the Fiction, 3) Zero Dark Thirty—The Fiction of the Fiction.
How do we discern truth from fiction, reality from representation? Is credibility the sole dogma of faith in the 21st Century?

Read My Lips! in the Press 2016:

May, 6: ‘Daiquir’s met Osama Bin Laden’ by Jeanne Prisser in the Volkskrant

May, 12: ‘Souvenirs voor het hiernamaals’ by Roos van der Lint for De Groene Amsterdammer

July, 3: ‘Osama Bin Laden in de burcht van de pelgrim’ by Dan Dickhoff for Jegens & Tevens

e-flux about Read My Lips!

 

European Academy of Participation

European Academy of Participation

Creative producers and the communities of tomorrow
A Strategic Partnership supported by the ERASMUS+ programme of the European Commission. September 2015 – August 2018

EAP_Logoformats_4cThe European Academy of Participation (EAP) brings together 10 partners from all over Europe, including higher education institutions and arts and culture organisations. The project aims to make a contribution to a more inclusive Europe, in which people live together in mutual respect of their differences. The EAP partners consider participatory practice in art and culture as a central tool to involve communities in a positive process of constructing a shared cultural space.

Participation is hot!
A key priority for funders, fostering social cohesion and exposing ethical questions around responsibility and authorship, participatory practice can provide compelling means to communicate through art and culture. It also embraces the dissolving of boundaries between academic and artistic disciplines and those between the policymaker, the artist, the curator and the audience. This increasing flexibility brings about a new practice profile: the creative producer.

EAP wants to develop:
* A shared understanding of a graduate profile for practitioners working in participatory settings, based on the dialogue between higher education, lifelong learning and the creative field.
* A benchmark document that adopts the Tuning Educational Structures in Europe methodology that will be validated and published for the use of educators and practitioners.
This includes a qualifications framework and acknowledges the already existing variety of participatory approaches in the humanities and the arts.
* An intensive 2 month, low-residency module/unit jointly offered by universities and cultural organisations. This post graduate lifelong learning education module/unit targets postgraduate students – from the arts, humanities and social sciences – as well as practitioners including artists, trainers, teachers, curators and others from third sector cultural organizations.
The ambition of EAP is to tap into the existing potential of higher education and the unique and hard won endeavours of creative projects and organizations scattered across Europe that are engaging the public as active agents in their work. Through interaction both sectors impact on the diversifying societies of Europe, valuing participatory practice in the arts.

EAP will organise 3 public conferences
1) 2016, 27-28 October, Dublin, Ireland: Towards a European Benchmark.
2) 2017, May, Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Bringing education and practice together.
3) 2018, May, Lyon, France: New Communities, New Jobs, New Policies.

Partners
Goethe-Institut, Munich, Germany; Castrum Peregrini, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; ACERT, Tondela, Portugal; Avrupa Kultur Dernegi, Istanbul, Turkey; National University of the Arts Bucharest, Romania; Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London, UK; University of Marseille, France; Universidad de la Iglesia de Deusto, Bilbao, Spain; ELIA The European League of Institutes of the Arts, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Create, Dublin, Ireland.

More info at www.academyofparticipation.org

Living in Diversity

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Monday 2 May 2016, 20 hrs
Location: Spui 25 , Amsterdam

Living in Diversity

A lecture by Kenan Malik

 

Over the past century, mass immigration has transformed European societies. Over the past year the migration crisis has threatened to tear the European Union apart. Both the mass migration of the past century and the migration crisis of today raise profound questions about what it means to be European and about what constitutes European values. They raise also profound questions about the relationship between difference and commonalities in a modern, liberal society. How is it possible, if at all, to make societies more inclusive, and accept different conceptions of the good, while also establishing a strong common moral framework? In this talk Kenan Malik asks what it means, both for social policy and individual action, to live in diversity.

The lecture will be followed by a panel discussion with representatives of Castrum Peregrini’s board of recommendation Avraham (Avrum) Burg, author and former Speaker of the Israeli Knesset and Marjan Schwegman, historian and former director NIOD, Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

The evening is organised on the occasion of the launch of the Gisèle House, where past and present courageous people of civil engagement in art and culture will be commemorated and that wants to contribute to a more inclusive society.

Location: Spui 25 , Amsterdam

entrance: € 8,50
students / reduced: € 5,-
jaarvrienden Castrum Peregrini: free entrance

BOOK YOUR TICKET HERE