With my mom, dad and sister I went to Rotterdam last Saturday to celebrate my birthday.
Initially I wanted to visit a city in the Netherlands that I had never seen before, but I was also looking for a nice exposition or event. The exposition ‘Cream, Cakes and Paper Chains, the Netherlands in a hundred birthdays’, catched my eye. So eventually I decided to go to the city I have also talked about in my previous post, Rotterdam!
You can visit the exhibition in ‘The Netherlands fotomuseum’, but you have to be quick because it runs until the 11th of january. With this exhibition, photographer Ilvy Njokiktjien gives us an insight into the customs and habits of various Dutch families. Ilvy pictured all kind of birthdays ranging from a first birthday to a hundredth. This exhibition evokes feelings of recognition or even of amazement. She not only showed different birthdays but also different cultures, poor and rich people, birthdays that you would expect or rather exceptional birthdays.
I found out that the way they exhibited the pictures is very important. They didn’t place all the pictures on the wall, but only three pictures. It was a small exhibition with four big television screens. That showed all pictures one by one. You could sit down or just stand and watch. To me it was a welcome change from walking along the art pieces. It made it easier to focus on all the photos.
In April 2013, Stichting Fotoweek (Photo Week Foundation, an initiative of the Nederlands Fotomuseum and Foam) proclaimed Njiokiktjien the first Photographer Laureate of the Netherlands. Fotoweek commissioned her to create a photo series based on the theme of ‘Look! My family’. She opted to depict the phenomenon of birthday parties, a moment that brings many families together. This series, consisting of ten birthdays, was on show at photographic festivals such as Noorderlicht during Fotoweek 2013. (Nederlands fotomuseum.nl)
There were a few photos that I could identify myself with.
The one on the beach. When I was young we always used to go to my grandfather’s cottage in Zeeland to celebrate his birthday over there.
And also these two, the rice cakes and fruit tarts were familiar to me. I didn’t like these. My mom always makes the best cakes so maybe I’m a bit spoiled in that sense.
When I saw this picture I’m not really sure what I felt. This kid suffers from the aging disease progeria. I was really happy for him that they made it possible to do the normal things other kids from his age also do. ‘I just want to participate’. You could read the stories behind all the photos on cards.
I think this is a recognizable photo to a big group of people. We always celebrated the birthdays of my teachers at primary school. Every kid in the class made something nice or with a few kids they prepared a short play or song. And I think it was the same at other schools in the Netherlands.
So on my birthday I visited an exhibition about birthdays, how nice could it be!
We also visited the permanent presentation about the Dutch photography history, ‘The Dark Room’.
With this exhibition, they also used experience to make it an attractive exhibition and it worked for me. They actually recreated a dark room where you can develop photos. Formerly they always used the dark room but now we have many more options. In the room there where around twenty tables with developing trays on it. You had to pick a photographic paper and place it in the trays to start various films. This made it very attractive to watch!
After the museum we had lunch at Hotel New York.
This hotel is settled in the former head office of the Holland Amerika Lijn. This is the place where from 1873 to1978 thousands of people headed to North Amerika in the hope for a better life. I thought it was a beautiful restaurant, with a great view of the harbour. And we really enjoyed the food! For students it’s expensive but definitely a good place to visit on my birthday with my parents who paid the bill! I really liked their interior, the sense of nostalgia is everywhere!
I hope you enjoyed reading my blog and when you visit Rotterdam you definitely have to visit these places!
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