Events

SPEME – Questioning Traumatic Heritage: Spaces of Memory in Europe, Argentina, Colombia, comes back to Amsterdam, and H401, for another secondment.

Following the programme in May 2023, SPEME – Questioning Traumatic Heritage: Spaces of Memory reached Bologna, Italy, for a new month of activities in the frame of the collaboration between academics and sites of memory in Argentina, Colombia, Italy and the Netherlands.

Interested in the intersection of memory, conspiracy and (de)coloniality in cultural objects embedded in (e.g., visual, literary) representations of the Russo-Ukrainian war, in this lecture we will zoom in on one such object – the Main Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces.

In this presentation, Thomas will share insights from his recent field research in Cuba, looking at the testimonies of trans men to gain an understanding of how masculinity is understood by this group within their particular socio-historical and economic contexts.

Ronit Eden will guide us through a conversation about three in situ interventions realised with contemporary artists in memorial places across the Netherlands.

Feminization rhetoric is a staple in foreign policy discourse. In order to assert their dominance, state leaders often try to project masculinity and diminish femininity. In this presentation, Lisa Gaufman shows how the discourse of femininity was weaponized by the Russian government in order to legitimize the current invasion of Ukraine.

In this talk, Ksenia Robbe addresses the events of the so-called ‘transitions’ that took places across Eastern Europe, Eurasia and the Global South and inaugurated the end of the Cold War, and the memory of these periods.

In relation to Pasajes VI, curator and art theorist David Komary points out that “individual shots reveal signifiers of another time or times, such as archive boxes stored in the basement, or the fading in of music clearly alluding to a different era than visually portrayed”. The reality of space and time changes shape throughout the movie, leaving the spectator both amazed by and curious about the perception of H401.

With Gisèle, een hommage, the filmer, theatre maker and dancer Betsy Torenbos creates a personal and intimate tribute to the Dutch artist Gisèle van Waterschoot van der Gracht. Betsy’s artistic view was combined with the music of composer Louis Andriessen, which he especially wrote and played for this film after his visit to the House of Gisèle.

Exhibition Opening and movie screening
Opening 8 May 2023, 20:30 hrs

A multimedia and multilingual research exhibition, the second edition of ‘Objects & Stories’.

In 2019 a funeral took place in Berlin for the recently discovered microscopic remains of 300 political prisoners executed by the Nazi’s during World War II. Taking outset in this event, the audio performance The Microscopic Burial examines how the work of mourning can be composed and redistributed as a collective act that bonds through shared affinities.

Provided with a stencil, old objects, spray paint and a blank sheet of paper, participants are invited to create a commemorative poster in memory of an imagined future event. Which two-dimensional motives would emerge out of the three-dimensional objects, and what can they symbolise? How are we to remember, that which had not yet taken place?

This May 2023, H401 will kick start the SPEME secondment in Amsterdam in close collaboration with our partners, Arti et Amicitiae and the Amsterdam School for Heritage, Memory and Material Culture.

On November 24th 2022, H401 will join the International Art Programm Festival. Organised through the entire building of Felix Meritis, Keizersgracht 32 (Amsterdam), the festival will consist of diverse art installations, art talks, films, interventions and stage presentations.

Première 9 juli 2022

Een film van Betsy Torenbos en Ard van Rijn
met muziek van Louis Andriessen.

EUROPE… A NEVERENDING WORK IN PROGRESS

presents new work by Merapi Obermayer and Henk Wijnen.

Opening Tuesday 17 may 2022, 18-20 hrs.

On 10 May, 16 hrs, colleagues from Italy represented in 18M8L will present their work and discuss it with interested peers from Amsterdam. If you wish to participate please register at productie@h401.org

A day full of online and offline activities across Europe: debates, conversations, presentations, a cultural and artistic program and actions to celebrate and shape the future of Europe together.

Project partners of SPEME (read about the project here) visit each other in turns. Groups of academics and practitioners from memory sites exchange on their work and discuss challenging practices from their own organizations and networks.

Exhibition and podcast

opening 17 December, 16 hrs

With great pleasure, we would like to invite you to the opening of Objects & Stories: Traumatic Heritages and Competing Narratives.

Recording from 3 November now online

A lecture by Guy Cools on contemporary art practices in literature, visual and performing arts that use mourning as a source for activism.

Recording from 28 October now online

Katarzyna Bojarska speaks about moments of rupture in societies that revise and transform their attitudes towards difficult aspects of their collective identity.

Exhibition on 22 & 23 October 2021

Day Collective explores new modes of language, based on intuition, silence, imagination, and sensibility.

Tête-à-Tête is a participatory performance, during which 3 participants and 2 artists converse through drawing on themselves, in silence, using their own skin as a medium for a wordless dialogue. There is only one rule — no words. The tool for drawing is eco cosmetic pencil. Age:18+.

Tête-à-Tête is a participatory performance, during which 3 participants and 2 artists converse through drawing on themselves, in silence, using their own skin as a medium for a wordless dialogue. There is only one rule — no words. The tool for drawing is eco cosmetic pencil. Age:18+.

25 February, 17 hrs
Ena Jansen in conversation with Philip Miller

Miller’s soundscape ‘Special Boy’ is a personal and moving piece addressing shame as a collision between childhood experiences and adult perspectives.

Nu online: videoregistratie van
Maaike Meijer en Glenn Helberg in gesprek

"Mannelijkheid wordt nog steeds eerder geassocieerd met onkwetsbaarheid, kracht, besluitvaardigheid, controle en macht. Dat is een probleem."

Gemodereerd door Raissa Biekman, programma manager van HIA NL, gaan Nalini Malani, Arnoud Holleman en Ina van Zyl in gesprek over onderwerpen die centraal staan in de tentoonstelling SHAME! and Masculinity. Thema’s die besproken worden zijn onder andere rape culture, body positivity, sensuality en masculinity.

The Week offers workshops, a keynote presentation with discussion and a session with policy-makers. Tune in for thought-provoking reflections about the current Zeitgeist that requires institutions and individuals to think about change. HCZ proposes a tool for that change, to open up spaces for difficult conversation about our heritage and the societies we want to live in. The Week will showcase and discuss the HCZ project’s experience with artists and activists that have worked with civil society initiatives to build ‘safe spaces’ that are open for dialogue.

This online event is part of OPEN UP! The Heritage Contact Zone Week of Contested Heritage and of SHAME! Exploring Masculinities. Peto is an author of SHAME! and Maculinities

A public online roundtable discussion on working with sensitive heritage, objects and communities. With Esther Captain, Jasper Chalcraft, Kornelia Kiss, e.a. Moderated by Joachim Umlauf In the framework of OPEN UP! The Heritage Contact Zone Week of Contested Heritage. See the whole programme here.

23, 25 and 26 November 2020

Artists, academics, activists and curators are invited to engage with the Heritage Contact Zone project outcomes about working with contested heritage.

Kasia Bojarska talks with Alexandra Hirszfeld, Paweł Leszkowicz and Ernst van Alphen about the exhibition SHAME! And Masculinity.

Patriarchal masculinity wreaks havoc in the world every day. Join this workshop to look at words and bodies individually and collectively through the lens of masculinity and its precepts.

A round-table conversation on metaphors, leadership and the difficulty of recognizing differences. With Katherine Watson, Carla Delfos and Jan-Jaap Knol. More information soon.

23 October 2020 - 1 March 2021
momentarily closed
With works by Ina van Zyl (NL/ZA), Natasja Kensmil (NL), Philip Miller (ZA), Marlene Dumas (NL), Jeanette Christensen (NO), Arnoud Holleman (NL), Hans Hovy (NL), Nalini Malani (IN), Artur Żmijewski (PL); curated by Ernst van Alphen

Community building. Political challenges and cultural practices. A lecture about public spirit, what threatens it and what we can do for it.

The video registration is now available here.

Symposium
in collaboration with Humanity in Action Nederland

What is the characteristic of contemporary pop culture in 2019? Do artists with a large platform have to express themselves on social and societal issues? And if they don't, are they "canceled"? What role does social media activism play in this interaction? How does popular culture create a connection in order to counteract polarisation between groups in society? During this edition, culture experts will engage in a dialogue with the public about the interaction between popular culture and social and societal issues.

A lecture by Cristina Demaria

Monday 25 November 2019, 17.30 hrs

How can moving images represent a space of trauma and turn it into a space for remembrance?

In and out of the archive: working with grey zones
Round-table conversation, workshop, artist talk
In the framework of the SPEME project we invite you to participate in an afternoon programme about working with historic material as an artist, a historian and an institution.