The things we surround ourselves with in our daily lives are a shadow of who we are. The house we live in, the carpet under our feet, the color of the wallpaper, souvenirs and knick knacks in the closet contain residues of memories and sentiments.

'What speaks to us' is a publication about the oeuvre of visual artist Arjan van Helmond, which offers a broad overview of his work from the past 12 years. The book is a moment of looking back, reflection, collecting and connecting.

De dingen waarm...

Little is known about the personality of Johannes Vermeer, one of the most famous Dutch painters of the 17th century. We do know that he married the Catholic Catharina Bolnes, whose family was closely associated with the Jesuit community in Delft.

In this book, Gregor J.M. Weber, head of visual arts at the Rijksmuseum, shows that Vermeer himself actually pursued a Catholic lifestyle. The relationship between the artistic ambitions of the young Vermeer and his Catholic surroundings is also dis...

RAABJERG by Danish artist Rune Peitersen (1971) explores the changing landscape of northern Jutland (DK) from the last Ice Age until today.

During the 16th-19th centuries, climate change and human extraction of natural resources led to violent sand drift, which transformed the once fertile landscape into a barren wasteland. Different governments – from kings to elected parliaments – enacted laws to try to reverse it. After 200 years, they ‘succeeded’ and started reintroducing plants i...

Productive Archiving discusses a variety of problems archival organizations. It mainly focuses on the following three issues with archival organizations that are usually overlooked: first, the question of inclusion in or exclusion from the archive; second, the loss of individuality and specificity in the archive, the danger of homogenization; and third, that archiving may become a form of pigeonholing, boxing specific identities into a confined space. Avoiding the archive because of these pro...

NL

De werelden die Jasper de Beijer (Amsterdam, 1973) ons in zijn fotowerken voorschotelt zijn fascinerend, herkenbaar en vervreemdend tegelijk. Zijn werk gaat over het proces van kijken, zien en interpreteren. Eerst denk je dat het een foto van de werkelijkheid is, maar dan wordt duidelijk dat het een foto van een papieren maquette is. Je dwaalt door de voorstelling die nu meer is dan een foto. Je moet er iets mee, maar wat? En dat is precies de vraag die de kunstenaar aan ons stelt: Weet je...

Beginning in the Middle. Conversations on the Post-Soviet, edited and compiled by Elsbeth Dekker and Robbie Schweiger, explores the works, lives and travels of artists coming from a (post-) Soviet context. The conversations delve deeper into questions of art and (de)colonisation in countries in the Caucasus and Central Asia, most of which recently celebrated their 30th anniversary of independence.

Departing from Dutch collections and exhibitions, the conversations try to grapple with question...