It all started with a spontaneous visit Evening strikes and the lights turn on as I bike my two sisters home through the center of Amsterdam. It had been a good day so far, the vacation was only half over. You could say the jar with memories was already half full, but there’s only so much space for one fall vacation. As I headed home, guiding my two young female bikers on, there was a joyous tune in my head, in knowing the future was bright up ahead. I suddenly stumbled upon the possibility to visit a good friend, whose house was in the area. I wasn’t able to spend time with him much the past months; being in a different, new year and all, so I knew I was meant to go there that night… Choices that shape the course of history We had discussed prior, of the possibility to hang out that night, but it had slipped out of my memory, and into his responsibility to cook dinner for the family that evening. But so be it, the friend was indeed home, and about to cook. As for myself, I wasn’t sure whether to stay for an uninvited, spontaneous dinner that I actually already had roaming around my stomach, or to cut the visit short and not be able to hang out longer. In the end, some delicious Chili Con Carne did slip through the throat and, it led us to an inspirational evening of conversations and the project that we’re all here for. Trash to some, modern art to others The night had by now fallen upon ‘Zeeburg’ and hearts and stomachs filled with glee. “But what for?” You might ask… The dessert? Well yes, that too. Though it has more to do with the trash pickup schedule for this area. You see, the neighborhood’s residents put out their garbage that night for the following morning, the houses were freed from trash. Which is where our story left off and began; the piles of awesome trash that get left behind on the streets of Amsterdam: for anyone to explore, particularly the one in front of his house. The thing is, you never know what you’ll find, and what people are wanting to get rid of. In that one pile, we both thought “why not?” and I found one of those rectangular, white, Ikea’s SKUBB clothing organizer for my sisters’ bedroom. (Interesting to note is that when I got home that night, they said that’s exactly what they had needed!) But it didn’t start off as a stroll for trash( as you might sometimes see vans do in my neighborhood), no, he was taking me to some of the most well-known architecture in the area (since his dad is an architect and I’m interested in it) on the ‘Scheepstimmermanstraat’ for example. And while in an artsy and inspired mood, we reminisced on past times, when the immigrants came in on huge ships to these docks, when coal workers, with ‘Keesje Brijde’ in particular, were caught looking/picking coal or food in the ‘Rietlanden’, and shot for no reason by a member of the ‘NSB’ or ‘Green Police’ under the Nazi regime. All this history that had taken place there was now replaced by a lot of modern architecture and structures. Longing for childhood adventure The walking and talking continued as the two friends on a mission with no goal stumbled on other piles of ‘leftovers’. Wardrobes, building material and more of the same could be found all over, and an occasional treasure like Chinese pottery is often worth the ‘embarrassing peak’. After a while we came across a very big pile with tons of useful stuff. As we looked through it, I know we both thought: “Let’s build a fort!” like back in the days of childhood. We had already found a nice suitcase along the way, and so we stacked up as much useful stuff for some kind of structure. He had it sticking out of the suitcase and I stacked it on a nice, white chair on a couple wheels, and we went off to look for a hidden, suitable spot in between the apartment complexes. People walking by either look at you like you’re crazy, are wondering what you’ll do with all that random stuff, question you moving in at such a young age or ignore you because hey, it’s Amsterdam. It surprised me how hard it was to navigate quickly across the stones in the sidewalk. 15 minutes of working hard at getting us somewhere later and I’ve passed him up with his suitcase, turn around and say: “This is one of those moments, where I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing.” And we just stopped, looked at ourselves and laughed. Finally at the water side, I ran up ahead and checked for any appropriate spots to build our fort or whatever. Didn’t see much, but I did see something else, and it was a lit up sign, a big ‘P’ with a red stripe through it for boats. And right then, I imagined us putting the big chair up there, and just chilling out. The thought of leaving a set of table and chairs behind became bigger. Eventually, I ran back to my friend to inspire him with the idea, and he suggested the suitcase too. We left our other stuff behind in a shaded corner and lifted the chair up, took the wheels out and set it down in the light. As we placed the suitcase right next to it, we were in awe of the piece of art we made. Onze troep was veranderd in kunst! I saw an older man biking towards the site, he sat his bike down and then came over towards us… | A turn for the better I told my friend that we should get down, and look for one of the wheels we had lost in the leaves. After all, we both wanted to have one as a memory of that piece of street art. The older man asked us what we were doing, to which we said the situation looks really weird, but we can explain it. He eventually just helped us look for one wheels, and eventually we gave up. At this point, we still didn’t know who he was, so I asked him if he minded us sitting up there or not. He didn’t care at all, and even came up and made a picture with his old Nokia phone. We sat down and talked about how it represented the immigrants who had all come through here, at these docks. The outsiders waited with their luggage, for a new life at the port of Amsterdam. ‘No Vacancy’ street art interpretations Imagine coming by the dock in a boat, seeing the empty, white chair and black suitcase left behind. What would come to mind? The unintentional meaning this piece has, we think is stunning. The historical ties that support it, made all the trouble so worth it. A lot of immigrants were allowed into the country, as well as having been denied access. The big sign of a ‘P’, most likely referring to parking or docking of the ships, has a big red line straight through it as to imply that there’s no room anymore. That’s also exactly why we chose to name it ‘No Vacancy, street art with a statement.’. A contrasting composition between light and dark, with the chair of course implying the ‘Western’ world, just sitting at home in all their comfort and luxury. Then logically, the suitcase represents the traveling immigrants. Going from place to place, always having to be flexible, hard-working and not a burden towards society like my friend Senne talks about in his collaborated article here. “De huidige immigratiepolitiek is slecht, kijk naar deze stoel.” The chair is empty, waiting for a wave of passengers to arrive and fill its spot. The ‘hotseat’ of the economy and immigration politics is not occupied well, but still doesn’t allow foreigners to take it. You could even look at it from a departing perspective; the dark suffering of an immigrant whose luggage is all that he owns, everything he had to leave behind to go on that voyage. The burdens he left behind in his home country, merely the hope in his seat, his position that might promise a better future. Accepting of immigrants Finally, this racial issue turned out to be very fitting for things that have been spoken about a Dutch holiday called ‘Sinterklaas’, or ‘Saint Nicolas’. In that holiday, black Moroccans called Moors are the servants of a Turkish bishop, Saint Nicolas. The past couple of days the topic whether the holiday is racist or not has blown up a lot, all over the country, even as far as the UN. You might want to check out the video for clarity, but all this goes to say that ‘Zwarte Piet’ should not leave the Dutch cultural traditions, for racial reasons. 22% of the Dutch immigrants look for asylum in the Netherlands. These new workers provide new, cheap labor forces that can an increase in productivity. So we should rather ACCEPT cultures, embrace our differences and celebrate them. And that’s exactly why art is here to make a stand, a political statement towards the matters (not) worth discussing. Check this great video out! The possibilities are endless From that artwork on, we realized we didn’t want to build the fort any more. After all that artsy occupation we headed on back because time was ticking, it gets late when you’re having fun. But all this wouldn’t have been complete without some fun lessons we learned… Trash could be used as street art! And so here’s a slideshow of three other interesting, intriguing usages of Amsterdam’s throw-away art… try it out yourself sometime! an artsy blogpost by John Ashworth! |
0 Comments
|
AuthorJohn D. Ashworth. Archives
June 2014
Categories
All
|