History, Memory, Commemoration is a research project by researcher Mirwan Andan (Makassar), artists Iswanto Hartono (Jakarta/Kassel) and artist Hans van Houwelingen (Amsterdam/Berlin). The project will result in eight films, each recorded on specific locations in Indonesia and the Netherlands that relate to a shared colonial history. The first film JAVA is recorded in Jakarta and was released in February 2024, the second film ACEH in September 2024. This film was recorded in Aceh and pictures how history is remembered and commemorated within the specific Aceh culture. It shows the influences of tradition, islam, politics, education, historiography and fashion on the way history is experienced, shared and passed on to next generation.

JAVA is the first film within the project History-Memory-Commemoration, a long-term collaboration between artist Iswanto Hartono and researcher Mirwan Andan, both members of the Indonesian collective Ruangrupa, and Dutch artist Hans van Houwelingen. The project aims to produce eight films, each recorded on specific locations in Indonesia and the Netherlands, that relate to their shared colonial history: Java, Aceh, Nias, Netherlands, Sulawesi, Kalimantan, Moluccas and Papua.

Two film: In Between Blue Waves and Green Corridors and Hey paarth, what about the atom bomb? on Documenta 15, Kassel.

Rijksbouwmeester: "Climate, energy, housing, agriculture, water: we have to organize space in a different way. To make responsible decisions on these complex issues it is important to look far into the future. In the three-year program Toekomstatelier NL2100, the Het College van Rijksadviseurs will use design as a way to think, to widen perspectives and transcend the boundaries of time, space, domains and disciplines. What trends do we see? What values ​​underlie this? What is important for the future of the Netherlands? We use the knowledge and skills of spatial designers, architects and artists."

SAY IT LOUD is an international group exhibition by contemporary artists whose work explores subjects related to diversity and the colonial past, and their representation or interpretation. This exhibition is part of the joint venture ‘Musea Bekennen Kleur’ (Museums Explore Colour), in which Dutch museums look at issues of diversity and inclusion within the museum sector. Artists: Participating artists: Kent Chan, Brian Elstak, Quinsy Gario, Ni Haifeng, Raquel van Haver, Hans van Houwelingen, Alle Jong, Kahlil Joseph, Patricia Kaersenhout, Kerry James Marshall, Tuan Andrew Nguyen, Otobong Nkanga, Alison Saar, Betye Saar, Juul Sadee, Henry Taylor and Kim More information on: www.museabekennenkleur.nl

Artist Hans van Houwelingen designed the entrance of this bicycle shed as an environmental artwork, in which the lizards from Blauw Jan 1994 are included. In collaboration with ZJA architects and the municipal landscape architect Ruwan Aluvihare, an imaginative place was created in the heart of Amsterdam.

In 1957 the Russian Sputnik brought covid-19 into orbit, where it circled around over time. Recently it made its way back to earth but decisively sent back into space once more. It is a hoax, criticism on conspiracy thinking, or just a fantasy? The film was produced within the project 'The World After' by de Oude Kerk in Amsterdam.

Museums won't put their art collection in the garbage because they have taken care long enough. With public art works however, especially in the Netherlands, it seems a normal practice. Lots of art in public space is just being destroyed. In this research project young artists video-registered what factors and actors determine the fate of cultural heritage.They implicitly outline the contours of a new vulnerable generation in a hardened politicized artistic climate. This group of artists managed to play a crucial role of significance.

Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) immediately wrote to the National Republican newspaper in Washington, which published five days later on April 19, 1876. In his letter to the editor, Douglass criticized the statue’s design and suggested the park could be improved by more dignified monuments of free Black people. “The black man here, though rising, is still on his knees and nude,” Douglass wrote. “What I want to see before I die is a monument representing the black man, not couchant on his knees like a four-footed animal, but erect on his feet like a man.”

The Van Heutsz Monument in Amsterdam re-signified to National Monument of Shame. From Statue to Pillory - debate in De Balie in Amsterdam about colonial monuments and the pillory as an conceptual instrument to dishonor. With Vilan van de Loo, Adriaan van Dis, Irene de Craen, Abram de Swaan, Jeffry Pondaag, Dr. ir. Esther Captain and Hans van Houwelingen.

Panorama Mesdag, painted by Hendrik Willem Mesdag in 1881, is the largest painting in the Netherlands - 14 meters high it encircles a real sand beach. Reality and imagination flow into one another into the illusion of a fabulous seascape. Here and there on the beach there are some washed-up objects, as the beachcomber encountered them in the nineteenth century. My proposal is to provide that beach with a large amount of contemporary find: plastic junk, such as we encounter today on many beaches, polluting and poisoning the seas and oceans. Precisely because Panorama Mesdag was created to reach people with imagination, we should pollute this image with the one that is threatening life on earth.

In the St-Joseph church in Oostende, the parish church of Leopold II, Van Houwelingen adds another confessional. On the backside of the object, gigantic fossils are installed. The cubicle in the middle, which is vacant, is reserved to hear confessions. In the right chamber we see Christ as a child, holding the globe, and in the left chamber the sculpture of a black monkey. Each telling the same story of colonial Congo from their own perspective. The voice of Christianity as a force of world domination, as an ideology of charity, but also as alibi for unspeakable brutality and suffering, becomes audible.

'Horizon' refers to the chairs on the beaches in the luxury seaside resorts where the bourgeoisie, gazing at the horizon, enjoys its luxury. According to his own words, 'painted to reality', the Mesdag seascapes give an elitist, romantic view of a privileged citizenry. Since Mesdag the 'reality' view of the sea has changed inexorably. Likewise, the view on his time has changed.

Wrinkled skin from water is survival instinct. Under water hands and feet create a profile to get more grip, like a car tire. Once the sea has been overcome these hands awaits new barriers, again defusing danger. As a sign of helpless surrender, or a stop sign against inhumanity.

A 2015 the University of Amsterdam commisioned a monument in honor of Prof. Dr. Arie de Froe (1907–1992), who taught physical anthropology and genetics at the UvA and became the UvA president. As a specialist in anthropometry, held in high esteem by the Nazis, De Froe fraudulently identified Sephardic Jews as non-Jews in order to prevent their deportation from the Netherlands. He worked as a race specialist, within the scientific discipline on which the Nazis based their racial policy. How does scientific integrity relate to human morality?

Until the 19th century, well-to-do citizens had themselves buried in de Oude Kerk, the most expensive burial chamber of the community, making sure they had a place in the most immediate vicinity of the Holy Trinity. Their financial compensation guaranteed the churches financial base. Hans van Houwelingen has developed a contemporary 'business plan' that gives a new impetus to the Oude Kerk, its artistic significance and its financial position. Once more, a rich citizen of Amsterdam will be buried here. In exchange for the donation of one million euros.

To be economically profitable a complete fictional history was provided for the development of Kloosterveen, an instant built residential area, that is now seen as an old fortified township to the west of Assen in the Netherlands. The true history of Kloosterveen is a couple of swampy pastures that have no more history than some grazing cows. The question of course is whether an artwork here is also intended to be a lie, that can turn into the truth of the artwork.

Fr. Dr. Mihai Iordache reflects on Bucharest public space, 2017

Museum de Fundatie in Zwolle invited Hans van Houwelingen to make an exhibition based on the art collection of Dirk Hannema (1896-1984). Hannema, the most controversial museum director in Dutch art history, attributed several false attributions to great masters. Intrigued by the shifts in the ethical paradigms that frame the understanding of art over time, van Houwelingen is attributing his artworks to Dirk Hannema. The artist becomes wilfully embroiled in the moral controversy he instigates, shirking the comfort and supposed neutrality of the documentary approach. “I like the incorrectness of becoming part of the moral tombola, rather than leaving myself out.”

The puny existence of a single squid or ammonite proves to relate to an ocean of time, their momentary imprint in time even gives eternity its face. That is why I put Podio del Mondo per l’Arte into a context of millions of years. On this scale of time your existence in this world, from 1934 on, is fossilized and sculpts your artistry into infinity. I bring my contribution to the Podio de Mondo per l’Arte as an ode to my friend and master, Marinus Boezem.

We could honor the soldiers that died in Arnhem knowing that their fight is still going on. To realize that freedom, injustice and occupation affects a large part of the world population. Realize that the allied resistance is diametrically opposed to the resistance to alliate in this time. Allied soldiers, from all over the world, determinedly went to battle for one great ideal of freedom. In the Netherlands in 2015, freedom is by no means a common ideal, but there is a fight for its definition: freedom of expression, freedom of religion, even political parties advocate segregation in the name of freedom. Nowadays freedom is a political tool in a fierce conflict of interest.

hey paarth, what about the atom bomb? resituates the Bhagavad Gita's knowledge of humankind within the social and political circumstances that permitted the decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima - a historical fact that continues to defy our thinking, the notion of an ethical progress of humanity.

Solo exhibition by Hans van Houwelingen at Stroom The Hague. Van Houwelingens provocative concepts on art and public space are reflected in his precise views on the contemporary monument. Within walking distance of the center of Dutch political power, he addressed the way people think about the relationship between art and public space and the power structures that influence it.

Invited by the Rotterdam CBK Writer Mohammed Benzakour and Hans van Houwelingen proposed the National Monument to the Guestworker on the Coolsingel in Rotterdam. Their proposal was to have the Bijenkorf construction by Naum Gabo from 1957, today in deplorable condition, refurbished by guest workers with thorough knowledge of restoration techniques. The sculpture from the reconstruction, the history of the guest workers within, would thus emerge as a phoenix from its ashes, its history now owned by migrants honouring their predecessors.

Under the title 'What's Done ... Can Be Undone!' Van Houwelingen makes an equally spectacular and fundamental proposal. The Hague has a Spinoza monument that should be in Amsterdam and Amsterdam a Thorbecke monument that belongs in The Hague. Van Houwelingen proposes a monument swap: Spinoza to Amsterdam, Thorbecke to The Hague.

The animal leans the head on the bars of the run. For the last time, the chicken lifts its head and opens its beak. Small pests crawl on and around the eye socket. Halfway through the video, the chicken collapses and body fluids flow out of its beak. The flow slows down to a steady drip. The head is now bent forward and rests on a piece of green grille of the chicken coop. - Joost Zwagerman (1963-2015)

During the art exhibition Sonsbeek 2008 the monument to Hendrik Antoon Lorentz has been given a contemporary Update. The names of a hundred and forty two scientists, active from the moment the limestone monument was unveiled in 1931 down to the present, were additionally carved in its surface. They point to the irrevocable fact that science only takes up temporary residence in a single brain and owes its success to the flow of new people. Lorentz thus belongs to a long series of scientific descendants.

Thorbecke's dogma of a principled separation between art and politics lasted a long time. We thought that politics and art exist in a status quo of mutual respect - a civilizing contract. In recent years, the distance between the parties radicalized and each other's usefulness has been challenged in a rhetoric of contempt and cynicism. However, there is a true bond between those who prescribe society and those who represent it. Parliamentary politics cannot exist without an extra-parliamentary counterpart. Where political space is bound, artists create all the space it needs.

The current museum and former fortress Fort Vijfhuizen is located on a green island, surrounded by a wide, double canal. At the rear of the complex a wall was build to protect soldiers for a battle that never happened. On this wall, Van Houwelingen created a path of old tombstones: a path along which death escaped.

Lelystad: the modernist model of urban planner Cornelis van Eesteren (1897-1988) that lay the foundations of the new town on the new polder had already proven unrealistic by the 1960s. The utopian plan for a dynamic modern town that would rise out of nothing was defeated by cold pragmatism. Forty years later, a major urban renewal project was needed to rescue the town from socioeconomic disaster and give it a new future.The ‘Master Plan for Lelystad Centre’ – the revitalisation plan developed by West 8 landscape architects and urban planners – proved, all things considered, to be the final blow for the failing modernist ideal. Lelystad would have to conform to the undeniable postmodernity of society. Lely’s Column marks that moment.

Design for the 2006 XX Olympic Winter Games Monument, commissioned by the city of Turin, measuring the symbolic scalelesness of the monument as a sum of anatomical imprints – silver capsules containing blood samples from each of the 2500 participating athletes.

In Regeln für den Menschenpark (‘Rules for the people’s park’, 1999), Peter Sloterdijk states that the current state of biotechnology should lead to bio-politics. With the genetic experiments of the nazi’s in mind, it goes without saying his lecture raised a storm of protest, especially in Germany. I don’t want to argue – the idea of creating a bio-genetic system controlled by scientists also frightens me –, but I embrace the discussion Sloterdijk wishes. Gene-technology is developing rapidly. It is appropriate to question the continuation of a morality system, which might not be a match for modern technology. Modern technology necessitates another perception of freedom.

One village church, three preachers and the inevitable change of the religious and social values in the Hoeksche Waard.

Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem 1998, exhibition: Power Up. In 1998, it was forbidden to people who sought asylum in the Netherlands to have a legal job. If the museum subscribes to the intentions underlying the exhibition, it should not only show its hospitality but also take a political stand, find a way to side-step the law and appoint a number of asylum-seekers as guards, who take care of Dutch cultural heritage. My contribution Guard on Art was an intention to confront the museum with itself. The matter addressed by this exhibition should not be limited to the works on show, but should extend also, or perhaps even primarily, to the institutional and political role of the museum; in a broader perspective the role of all ‘western’ art museums.