Jakob Ganslmeier and Onias Landveld filming their first story at the Bergen-Belsen memorial, Germany, October 2021.
Paradox is happy to share the names of the talented international group of artists working on Houses of Darkness, our long-term collaboration with three WWII memorial centres in Norway, Germany, and The Netherlands. Over the coming months, three teams will produce new work focusing on the ‘perpetrator perspective’, taking another route into the WWII heritage of extreme intolerance culminating in genocide. Departing from the traces/remains of the houses of the camp commanders, the teams will investigate their own family’s mental and historical relationship with a dark past, a past that is lesser known to new generations of Europeans. Sharing family histories with multiple painful perspectives will confront us with lines of thought that are much less remote than one would wish them to be.
Dutch-American documentary filmmakers Jongsma+O’Neill will explore the area of Kamp Westerbork – a former transition camp in the province of Drenthe, the Netherlands – where Eline Jongsma used to forage for mushrooms with her family as a child. The discovery of a WWII-era perpetrator hiding in her family tree inspired her to re-evaluate her relationship to history, and to the ground beneath her feet. Similarly, having grown up in the close proximity to the former concentration camp in Dachau, Germany, visual artist and photographer Jakob Ganslmeier has teamed up with Dutch-Surinamese spoken word artist Onias Landveld, contemplating the present-day perception of the Holocaust as mediated through archetypical mages. At the smallest of the three memorial centres, the former Falstad prison in Norway, Ganslmeier will work with Norwegian writer Simon Stranger, author of the acclaimed Keep Saying Their Names. In his novel Stranger shifts the perspective from the Jewish family of his wife to that of a Norwegian SS commander, departing from a house in Trondheim where both have resided.
The stories will be launched online early this summer, physical exhibitions/installations at the three memorial centres will be opened in late June to early July. Kummer & Herrman designers from Utrecht (NL) are responsible for the visual identity of the project. UK based Stand + Stare are developing an innovative web app, providing context as well as interaction with the core of the Slices based narratives, as well as the installations by the authors, produced by Paradox. Stay tuned for updates!
Houses of Darkness is supported by an AECEA grant of the European Union, Zeit Stiftung, Dutch Culture, the Province of Drenthe (NL) and others.
Now You See Me Moria: museums joining forces against refugee policy
On October 23, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam opened the exhibition NOW YOU SEE ME MORIA – POST/NO/BILLS #2. The exhibition is part of a new series by Thomas Castro, curator of graphic design: ‘to show current graphic design that responds to what is currently happening in the field and in society. In this case I wanted to give the residents of Moria agency to show their living conditions. It is impressive what the open call has brought about: all kinds of people felt the need to respond, from the professional designer to the 14-year-old layman behind his PC. The posters show the power of the graphic form, to convey a message with language and image.’
Starting with the Nederlands Fotomuseum in early June and followed by Foam in early July, the Stedelijk opening rounded up a series of exhibitions calling attention to the unbearable living conditions of the Moria refugee camp on Lesbos, Greece. The exhibitions highlighted the posters designed by 446 graphic designers from all over the world, based on pictures made by refugees in the camp. They had been produced within the context of a 2021 Valentine’s Day campaign organised by the collective behind Now You See Me Moria which was spread across major European cities by the movement’s strong international following. Noemí, a Netherlands-based Spanish photo editor who initiated the @now_you_see_me_moria Instagram account in 2020, gathered the posters in an ‘Action Book’ and ‘Action Kit’ (published by Paradox). Both contain all 446 posters as well as a choice of photographs. The kit is the unbound version of two books and is a ready-made exhibition that can go straight to the wall of an exhibition or billed in public space. The book empowers anyone to become a messenger of change: offer one to local or national politicians as well as media in order to give them courage to change their attitude fundamentally!
NOW YOU SEE ME MORIA – POST/NO/BILLS #2 at the Stedelijk features a printer which can be used by visitors to print out posters themselves. Now You See Me Moria can currently also be seen at the Weltmuseum in Vienna. Multiple exhibitions have found place since the launch of the publication in June in the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Austria and Germany.
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, 23 Oct 2021 – 30 Jan 2022
Frank van der Salm signing NOWHERE at Hartmann Books, Paris Photo
NOWHERE – Imagining The Global City presents work of the Dutch photography Frank van der Salm who has been documenting urban landscapes around the globe over the last twenty-five years. Joint under the theme of urban development as an expression of our time, the images conjure up a city that is simultaneously everywhere and nowhere. Van der Salm’s vision was masterfully translated into a book by Irma Boom whose playful designs, sometimes placing images upside down, challenge the viewer’s perception, inviting us to get lost in the imaginary metropolis.
Following the exhibition’s finissage at the Nederlands Fotomuseum and an exciting weekend at the book market of Unseen in Amsterdam, Frank van der Salm and editor/curator Bas Vroege are now getting ready for Paris Photo. Hartmann Books and Projects, the esteemed co-publishers of the book, will hold a signing of the book at their Paris Photo booth on Saturday, November 13, 17h, offering an opportunity to meet the artist in person.
NOWHERE book signing by Frank van der Salm, booth Stand SE 24 Paris Photo, 13 Nov 2021, 17h
Paris Photo, 10–14 November, Grand Palais Éphemère
