the netherlands

The Procession and the Bronk of Eijsden (2026, The Netherlands)

One of the Oldest Living Traditions of the Meuse Valley

A photo essay from Eijsden, Limburg, The Netherlands

A slideshow of black-and-white photographs from the procession of the Bronk of Eijsden of 2026.

 

On Sunday morning, 7 June 2026, we visited the village of Eijsden, one of the southernmost villages in The Netherlands, located on the banks of the River Meuse, close to the Belgian border. We had come to see the famous Bronk, one of the oldest and most remarkable religious and cultural traditions in the country.

Unfortunately, we only had time for the morning part of the celebrations. We missed the afternoon procession, the Monday festivities, and the Tuesday events. After what we experienced, however, there is little doubt that we will return. Perhaps in 2027.

At first sight, the Bronk looks like a religious procession. And indeed, its origin lies in the medieval Feast of Corpus Christi, introduced throughout the Catholic world in the thirteenth century. In Eijsden, however, the Bronk is much more than a church event. It is a village-wide celebration that brings together almost every generation and every part of the community.

Long before the procession begins, the village is already awake. Streets are decorated, temporary altars are erected, flowers are arranged, and families prepare for a day that many residents consider the most important event of the year. The procession itself passes through streets lined with spectators, musicians, children, families, members of local associations, and representatives of traditions that have been passed down for centuries.

What impressed us most was not the religious aspect, important though it remains for many participants. It was the sense of community.

The Bronk is not organised for tourists. It is not a commercial festival. It is not designed to attract large crowds from outside the region. Instead, it is a celebration created by the village for the village itself.

That may sound simple, but in modern Europe it is becoming increasingly rare.

During the procession we saw people who clearly knew each other well. Families participated together. Local music societies marched proudly through the streets. Young people played important roles alongside older generations. Traditions were not presented as museum pieces but as living parts of daily life.

A documentary produced by regional broadcaster L1 (see above) captures this atmosphere beautifully. Young men form the traditional jonkheid groups, local harmonies spend weeks preparing their music, and volunteers create flower carpets and temporary shrines. Many participants describe the Bronk not primarily as a religious obligation but as a tradition they inherited from parents and grandparents and wish to pass on to future generations.

The history behind the celebration reaches back more than seven centuries. The Feast of Corpus Christi was introduced in the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, the historic region to which Eijsden belonged culturally and religiously for many centuries. The feast itself was inspired by the visions of Juliana of Cornillon, a nun from the Liège area. When Pope Urban IV officially established Corpus Christi in 1264, the tradition spread across Europe. In Eijsden, it survived where many similar processions disappeared.

One reason may be that the Bronk evolved into something larger than a procession. It became a celebration of local identity.

The festivities continue after Sunday. On Monday, groups visit various locations in the village, and one of the highlights is the Cramignon, a traditional chain dance found in parts of Dutch and Belgian Limburg. Hundreds of dancers can join hands and move through the streets to melodies that have been played for generations. The Cramignon has been recognised as Intangible Cultural Heritage and remains one of the most distinctive traditions of the Meuse Valley.

We only caught glimpses of this atmosphere. We heard stories about the dances, saw preparations, and sensed the excitement among participants. It left us wanting more.

For travellers interested in local culture, Eijsden offers something increasingly difficult to find. Here, tradition is not performed for visitors. Visitors are simply allowed to witness a community celebrating itself.

And perhaps that is precisely why it feels so authentic.

Practical Information

The centrepiece of the Bronk is the Corpus Christi procession, which today takes place on the Sunday after Corpus Christi, eleven days after Pentecost. Monday is devoted to community celebrations, including the famous Cramignon dances and traditional visits throughout the village. On Tuesday, the Bronk gradually draws to a close with music, dancing, and gatherings that allow neighbours, families, and friends to enjoy one final day together before the village returns to its normal rhythm.

Eijsden is located approximately ten kilometres south of Maastricht and can easily be reached by car, bicycle, or train.

Visitors are welcome to watch the procession and festivities, but it is worth remembering that this is first and foremost a community event. Respectful observation, patience, and a willingness to simply enjoy the atmosphere are rewarded with an experience that feels genuinely local.

If possible, stay for several days. Sunday's procession is impressive, but Monday's celebrations and the famous Cramignon dances are an essential part of the story.

Valuas and Guntrud: How Venlo Invented Its Own Origins

Statue of Valuas and Guntrud in Venlo — a legendary founding couple not from ancient history, but from an 18th-century reinvention that turned procession giants into symbols of the city’s identity.

Walk through Venlo and you may come across a striking pair: a proud warrior and a composed woman, often presented as the city’s founding couple. Their names are Valuas and Guntrud. They look as if they belong to the distant world of tribal Europe and Roman frontiers. But their story tells us less about ancient history—and more about how communities shape their own past.

A Founding on the River

According to the legend, Valuas was a leader of the Germanic Bructeri. Defeated somewhere east of the Rhine, he fled with his followers around 96 AD, moving west until they reached the river Maas. At a bend in the river, they decided to settle.

Guntrud, presented as his wife, stands beside him in the story as they choose this place—a moment that turns retreat into a beginning. In this version, Venlo is not the result of gradual growth, but of a single, decisive act.

It is a story that fits neatly into the larger narrative of early Europe, at the shifting edge of the Roman world.

A Legend from the 1700s

But the story itself is much younger than it claims. It was only written down in the mid-18th century (around 1754).

That timing matters. Across the Low Countries, religious processions once featured large figures—giants representing biblical characters. In Venlo, one of these was the giant Goliath and his companion.

As attitudes changed under the influence of the Counter-Reformation, such figures became controversial and were sometimes restricted. Communities had to adapt if they wanted their traditions to survive.

In Venlo, those figures were gradually reinterpreted. Goliath was transformed into Valuas, a heroic founder. His companion became Guntrud—though her name was introduced only later, reportedly through a local initiative or contest. What had once been part of a religious spectacle became a story about origins.

From Giants to Citizens

Over time, the transformation deepened. The figures moved from processions into storytelling, and from storytelling into the physical landscape of the city. Today, statues of Valuas and Guntrud stand in Venlo, and their names echo in local traditions.

What began as an adaptation became identity.

This is what makes the story so interesting. It shows how traditions are not simply handed down unchanged. They are reshaped—sometimes deliberately—to fit new circumstances. In doing so, they gain a different kind of authenticity: not historical, but cultural.

A City That Chose Its Past

Valuas and Guntrud may not be historical figures, but they are not meaningless inventions either. They are the result of a conscious choice: to preserve a tradition by giving it a new form.

In that sense, the story of Venlo is not about a tribal leader fleeing across Europe. It is about a community, centuries later, deciding what it wanted to remember—and how.

And that may be the more enduring kind of history.

A Living Room Turned Museum: The Story of Maarten and Reina van Bommel–van Dam

The “Stijlkamer” at Museum van Bommel van Dam — a reconstructed living room where holograms of Maarten and Reina van Bommel–van Dam bring their shared life, collecting passion, and personal story vividly back to life.

Step into Museum van Bommel van Dam and you sense immediately that this is not a typical museum. The collection feels personal—less like a carefully constructed overview of art history, and more like a life lived with art.

That is exactly what it is.

Collecting What Moved Them

Maarten van Bommel (1906–1991), a banker, and Reina van Dam (1910–2008) collected art not by theory, but by instinct. They chose works that spoke to them—drawn by colour, material, or simply a feeling.

Over time, their home filled with paintings, sculptures, and objects. The result was not a neat, chronological collection, but something more interesting: a personal landscape of modern art, shaped by taste rather than rules.

A Gift That Became a Museum

By the late 1960s, their collection had outgrown their house. Instead of selling it, they made a remarkable decision. In 1969, they offered the entire collection to the city of Venlo.

The condition was simple: it had to remain together and accessible to the public.

Venlo accepted, and in 1971 the museum opened—built around a private collection, but carrying the spirit of the people who created it.

A Museum with a Personal Memory

One space captures this especially well: the “Stijlkamer,” a room that echoes the atmosphere of their own home. It reminds visitors that these works were once part of everyday life, not just objects on display.

That is what sets this museum apart. It is not only about art—it is about how art was lived with.

More Than a Collection

The Museum van Bommel van Dam remains rooted in that original idea. It continues to grow, but it still carries the imprint of its founders.

What began as a private passion became a public place—without losing its character.

The Steenen Trappen: A House of Stone and Memory in Roermond

De Steenen Trappen, Roermond (The Netherlands).

In the Neerstraat, in the heart of Roermond, stands a building long known as De Steenen Trappen—the Stone Steps. It is a façade that suggests permanence and authority. And for centuries, it has carried both.

From Elite Residence to Children’s Home

The story begins not with children, but with status.

The main house was built in 1666, shortly after the devastating fire that burned down most of the city center. It was built as a grand double residence in Maasland Renaissance style. Behind its symmetry and heavy construction lies an even older history: this part of the city has been inhabited since at least the 12th or 13th century.

In the late 19th century, the building took on a new role. Around 1875, it became a convent for the Sisters of the Poor Child Jesus, and from 1908 onward it functioned as a children’s home—the phase that still defines how many people remember it.

De Steenen Trappen, former girls’ orphanage in Roermond (The Netherlands). Image based on an image from “Limburgse Genealogie Wiki”.

Inside the Walls

Official records describe the function of the building. Personal memories describe its atmosphere.

People who entered the complex recall a sober and enclosed interior, dominated by dark wood and heavy construction. Movement inside was restricted; parts of the building felt unstable or off-limits. It was not a place one casually visited.

More striking is its reputation. For many, especially as children, the building inspired unease or even fear. Stories circulated, but rarely positive ones. The sense of a closed world—of things happening out of sight—remains part of its legacy.

Some recollections hint at a strict and austere regime:

  • children wearing hand-me-down clothing

  • daily routines shaped by discipline and labour

  • a distant, rule-driven environment

These are fragments rather than full accounts, but together they suggest a life that was structured, controlled, and not always gentle.

A Complex Transformed

The physical complex did not survive intact.

In the 1950s and 1960s, large parts were demolished or radically altered. Older buildings—some dating back to the period after the 1665 fire—disappeared. New structures replaced them, including a flat building along the Paredisstraat. Even the convent chapel was reduced largely to its front façade.

By the time the nuns left in 1994, the site was a mix of historic fragments and later additions, much of it standing empty.

From Institution to Housing

The redevelopment that followed reshaped the area once again.

Through a process of renewal and new construction, the complex was converted into a residential zone:

  • The main building and the chapel façade were preserved

  • Surrounding structures were rebuilt or replaced

  • Around 75 apartments were created, partly within the old fabric, partly new

The inner courtyard—once closed and inward-looking—became a network of small streets and shared spaces. Shops were added at ground level, with housing above.

What had been a secluded institution became part of the open city.

What Remains

Today, “De Steenen Trappen” is no longer a convent or a children’s home. Much of the original complex has vanished or been transformed.

And yet, the place still carries its past.

Not only in its architecture—the thick walls, the layered construction—but also in the way it is remembered. The building stands as a reminder that history is not just what survives in stone, but also what lingers in memory.

In Roermond, “De Steenen Trappen” is still there. The stories behind the building is harder to see—but not entirely gone.

Further reading

  • Stichting Ruimte, Ruimtelijk, March 2001 (article on De Steenen Trappen)

Progress vs Regress: Listening to Those Who Lived Through It

Visitors watching Progress vs Regress (2016) by the Dutch artist Melanie Bonajo.

I saw this movie at the Museum van Bommel van Dam in Venlo (The Netherlands). It is Progress vs Regress (2016) by the Dutch artist Melanie Bonajo.

The movie begins with a simple idea: instead of asking what progress means in theory, ask the people who have actually lived through it.

Bonajo gives the floor to people in their eighties and nineties. They speak about changes that shaped their lives—women’s suffrage, the contraceptive pill, television, the car. Things we now take for granted once redefined what freedom meant. Some of these changes clearly expanded their world.

But the tone shifts when the conversation moves to the present. The internet, smartphones, constant connectivity—these are not simply improvements. They make communication easier, but can also create distance. The world feels faster, more efficient, but not always more human.

What makes the movie compelling is its calm honesty. There is no grand argument, no dramatic conclusion. Just people reflecting on what has been gained—and what may have been lost.

In the second half, younger and older generations speak side by side. The contrast is subtle but telling. What one group experiences as natural, the other experiences as disorienting. Not because they resist change, but because they remember a different rhythm of life.

The film leaves you with an uncomfortable but important question: if progress keeps moving forward, who decides what counts as improvement?

And perhaps even more quietly: who gets left behind when we do not ask that question?

The Story of Maastricht’s Sint Servaasbrug

AI-generated impression of the disaster during the Heiligdomsvaart of 12 July 1275 in Maastricht. As thousands of pilgrims crossed the wooden bridge over the Maas, the central support gave way and the structure collapsed, throwing hundreds into the river.

If you cross the Maas river in Maastricht today over the tranquil Sint Servaasbrug, you are treading on a structure that has witnessed nearly two thousand years of European history—beginning with Roman ambition, shaken by medieval tragedy, and still standing as a symbol of connection in modern times.

A Bridge of Empires

The origins of Maastricht’s main river crossing go all the way back to the 1st century AD, when the Romans founded a settlement called Trajectum ad Mosam—“the crossing on the Maas.” To connect their expanding empire, they built a wooden bridge just south of today’s bridge, linking the Roman road between Cologne and Boulogne-sur-Mer. Trade, troops, and ideas flowed across it for centuries.

But rivers change, wood decays, and the Roman Empire fell. Yet the location remained strategic: Maastricht grew into a religious center after the death and veneration of Saint Servatius, the city’s 4th-century bishop, said to have been a distant relative of Jesus himself. The bridge now carried not only merchants and soldiers—but pilgrims.

Why the Bridge Mattered

By the Middle Ages, Maastricht was a hub of commerce, faith, and power. The bridge was no mere local crossing—it was a lifeline:

  • It connected Flanders with the German Empire, critical for regional trade.

  • It formed part of the Via Regia, a major route of imperial and religious travel.

  • It served as a gateway for pilgrims traveling to venerate Saint Servatius’ relics in the basilica on the west bank.

By the 13th century, the city had outgrown the original Roman bridge. A new wooden bridge, longer and higher, was built on stone piers to accommodate increasing traffic. But its spiritual and economic importance also meant it bore heavy loads—quite literally.

1275: The Day Faith Collapsed

On 12 July 1275, during a Heiligdomsvaart, the wooden bridge gave way under the weight of thousands of pilgrims. Eyewitness accounts describe the central pier collapsing, dragging over 400 people into the river. It was one of the worst civil disasters in medieval Dutch history. The victims were not just townspeople, but pilgrims from all corners of Europe—many of them carrying hopes for healing or salvation.

This wasn’t just a physical collapse. It was a rupture in the spiritual and economic heartbeat of Maastricht.

Stone and Symbolism: A New Bridge Rises

In the wake of the tragedy, the city responded swiftly. Between 1280 and 1298, the current stone bridge was constructed slightly upstream. It featured seven arches (later expanded), a fortified gate on the eastern side, and deep foundations—built not just to last, but to restore confidence.

The new bridge took the name of the city’s protector: Saint Servatius. In this way, the bridge itself became a monument of faith restored, and a channel of movement for centuries to come.

Witness to Time

Since its construction, the Sint Servaasbrug has quietly carried:

  • the boots of Spanish troops during the 16th-century Eighty Years’ War;

  • the footsteps of Napoleonic administrators;

  • the carts of industrial trade in the 19th century;

  • and the bicycles and strollers of today’s locals and visitors.

It even survived wartime sabotage: in 1944, retreating German forces blew up parts of the bridge—but Maastricht rebuilt it once again.

A Bridge Between Heaven and Earth

The bridge is named after a saint who, according to legend, received a key to the gates of Heaven from Saint Peter. That key, made of solid silver, is still displayed during the Heiligdomsvaart. In this light, the bridge is more than stone—it is metaphor. It binds past to present, the sacred to the worldly, the west bank’s basilica to the east bank’s bustling Wyck district.

Today’s Bridge, Yesterday’s Story

When you walk across the Sint Servaasbrug today, you walk in the footsteps of Roman legions, medieval pilgrims, and modern dreamers. It may not boast the grandeur of Florence or Paris—but few bridges in Europe carry such a layered story.

Stone by stone, it tells us this: cities survive not only by what they build, but by what they rebuild.

The Monks Who Collected the World — Steyl’s Holy Zoo

Stuffed animals at the Missiemuseum in Steyl — a 19th-century vision of faith, science, and the irresistible urge to collect the world.

In the late 19th century, the quiet monastery of Steyl on the river Maas became the unlikely center of a global enterprise. The Missionaries of the Divine Word sent brothers and priests to every corner of the world — to preach, to teach, and, as it turned out, to collect. From the tropics and the savannas, from jungles and islands, they shipped back not only souls saved but animals stuffed.

What began as a pious wish — to show the richness of God’s creation — soon grew into something much larger. Crates arrived from China, Indonesia, New Guinea, and Africa, filled with birds in brilliant plumage, coiled snakes, monkeys, and even big cats. In Steyl’s Missiemuseum, they were arranged behind glass: lions beside antelope, parrots beside penguins, all labeled with elegant handwriting and missionary pride.

Over time, the collection grew into a menagerie of wonder and contradiction — part natural history, part sermon, part obsession. The monks called it education; visitors might have called it awe. Looking at it today, with rows upon rows of creatures staring out through dusty glass eyes, one senses how missionary zeal and Victorian collecting fever merged into a single act of devotion — and domination.

The result is astonishing and a little unsettling: a frozen ark, a world gathered in faith and fervor. In Steyl, the brothers tried to bring God’s creation home — and ended up capturing the wildness of an entire world inside the stillness of glass.

Rotterdam my City — The Heart Torn Out — Zadkine’s Monument in Rotterdam

Ossip Zadkine’s “The Destroyed City” (1953): the figure cries to the sky, its heart torn away, mourning the loss that once defined Rotterdam.

When the bombs fell on Rotterdam on May 14, 1940, the medieval heart of the city vanished in a single afternoon. The aerial photograph taken shortly after the war shows the shocking emptiness — blocks of rubble replaced by a grid of bare streets, with only fragments of buildings standing like teeth in a broken jaw.

A few years later, Ossip Zadkine gave this loss a body and a voice. His bronze sculpture De Verwoeste Stad (The Destroyed City, 1953) stands near the city’s current center, close to where that lost heart once beat. The figure’s body torn open and twisted, with its arms reaching out to the sky — crying out in anguish, its chest ripped apart, its heart gone. Zadkine, a Russian-born sculptor who lived in Paris, said he was inspired after passing through Rotterdam and feeling the pain of a “city without a heart.”

The monument does not celebrate triumph; it embodies grief. Yet within its contorted form lives a strange vitality — the cry that turns upward, transforming pain into defiance. Around it, a new city has risen: modern, vertical, and full of life. The statue remains as its conscience, reminding Rotterdam not only of what was destroyed, but of the courage to rebuild.

An aerial photo of the city center taken shortly after World War II (1 June 1946, KLM Aerocarto).

Rotterdam: Where Words Work as Hard as People Do

Rotterdam, the ECT container terminal.

In Rotterdam, language is rarely decorative. It’s a working tool—sharp, efficient, and stripped of unnecessary polish. The city’s direct way of speaking is often noted by visitors, sometimes mistaken for bluntness. But this tone was forged at the docks, not in drawing rooms.

Rotterdam is Europe’s largest port, a place built on movement and timing. Ships must be unloaded and reloaded as fast as possible, often within hours. The crews, dockworkers, and crane operators come from dozens of countries, speaking as many languages. There’s little time for nuance or ceremony. Orders must be clear, warnings unmistakable, responses immediate. In this world, words are like ropes and winches—tools that make things happen.

That linguistic economy has seeped into the city’s character. Even beyond the port, Rotterdammers tend to speak plainly, preferring action over ornament. It’s not rudeness but pragmatism—communication shaped by urgency and teamwork among people who might only meet once.

Contrast this with rural or agricultural communities, where language is part of long-term relationships. There, speech is softer, tuned to coexistence over generations. In Rotterdam, by contrast, speech is transactional and situational—designed for efficiency, not diplomacy.

Linguists and sociologists studying port cities have observed similar patterns elsewhere: directness as a form of linguistic adaptation to high-intensity, multicultural environments. When trust must be built in minutes, clarity becomes the highest form of respect.

Further reading

  • Johnstone, Barbara. Linguistic Individuality and Regional Speech Patterns.

  • Coupland, Nikolas. Style: Language Variation and Identity.

  • Labov, William. Sociolinguistic Patterns.

  • Hymes, Dell. Foundations in Sociolinguistics: An Ethnographic Approach.

After Shopping — Christmas in Roermond

Shoppers in the Grote Kerkstraat in Roermond (The Netherlands).

The shopping is done. Arms heavy with glossy bags, faces flushed from cold and discounts, people drift out of the outlet — tired but pleased.

Through the pedestrian tunnel that links the outlet to the old town, the mood shifts. The glitter of commerce fades into the glow of Roermond itself. Along Grote Kerkstraat, the cobblestones shine with rain, and the air smells of fries, beer, and the faint spice of winter.

Laughter echoes between cafés. Coats unbutton, glasses clink. The shoppers have become celebrants — and for one bright evening, Roermond feels like a small city entirely at ease with itself.

Rotterdam my City — The Cube Houses of Rotterdam

The Cube Houses of Rotterdam (The Netherlands).

In the heart of Rotterdam, tilted above the busy streets near Blaak station, stand a row of yellow cubes that look as if they’ve tumbled from the sky and frozen mid-fall. These are the Cube Houses (in Dutch: Kubuswoningen), designed in the late 1970s by architect Piet Blom, who imagined each house as a tree — together forming an abstract forest of modern living.

Each cube rests on a hexagonal pillar and leans at a 45-degree angle. Inside, every wall becomes a surprise: windows are tilted, floors meet at odd corners, and space itself feels like an adventure in geometry.

Blom’s design was part of Rotterdam’s bold post-war identity — a city that rebuilt itself not by copying the past but by inventing the future. Today, one of the houses serves as a museum, and visitors step inside to experience what it’s like to live within a dream.

The Cube Houses aren’t just architecture; they’re a statement — proof that in Rotterdam, imagination can be built in concrete, glass, and bright yellow panels.

Why Some Art Grabs Us — and Some Wait for Us to Notice

A work of Mattia Pajè, a resident of the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht (October 2025). Mattia Pajè explores how truth is constructed and manipulated in an age of post-truth narratives, pseudoscience, and conspiracy theories. His work turns research and site-specific installations into layered spaces where images, ideas, and time overlap—questioning not only what we see, but how we come to believe it.

Ever stood in front of a painting and felt … nothing? And then, another time, been completely drawn in — as if the work was quietly speaking your language?

That spark we feel isn’t random. It’s the mind recognising a pattern it half-knows — something close enough to grasp, yet just beyond reach. When the familiar and the unfamiliar meet, we lean forward. That’s the space where learning, and art, begin.

Realistic art often hits that balance for many people easily. We recognise the world it shows us, so it feels natural to step inside. That’s why it can be instantly appealing: it speaks in a language we already know. Contemporary or conceptual art, on the other hand, often takes its time. Without shared references or context, it can feel distant — like a conversation we’ve walked into halfway through.

Artists and curators simply know more of those conversations. They’ve built broader frames of reference, so they see patterns and meanings that others might miss. But understanding can grow. A short explanation, a hint of context, or even a second look can turn confusion into connection.

Some works reach us immediately; others wait quietly until we’re ready to meet them halfway. That’s what makes art enduring — it doesn’t always shout for attention, but it’s always there, waiting to be seen.

Further Reading

  • Reber, Schwarz & Winkielman — Processing Fluency and Aesthetic Pleasure

  • Silvia — What Is Interesting?

  • Leder & Nadal — A Model of Aesthetic Appreciation

  • Loewenstein — The Psychology of Curiosity

  • Marin & Leder — Berlyne Revisited

Rotterdam Swim

From 2010, when Rotterdam Swim was still Rondje Noordereiland.

Each summer in Rotterdam, when the tide slows and the Maas turns mirror-smooth, a few hundred brave souls slip into its grey-green waters to swim around the island that beats at the city’s heart — the Noordereiland. What began in 2008 as a daring challenge among a dozen enthusiasts, the Rondje Noordereiland has grown into the Rotterdam Swim, a beloved open-water tradition that binds swimmers, city, and river in one living current. For many participants, it’s not about speed but about the thrill — the taste of brackish water, the slap of waves, the sight of the skyline from water level.

Safety boats, kayakers, and “kantjeslopers” — volunteers running along the embankments — keep watch, but the real challenge is mental: trusting the rhythm of your stroke as the city hums above you. Over the years, the swim has become a symbol of Rotterdam’s grit and love for the river that defines it.

Every edition tells the same story in a different tide — of endurance, community, and the pure joy of diving straight into the city’s bloodstream.

From 2010, when Rotterdam Swim was still Rondje Noordereiland.

Encounters at the Jan van Eyck Academie (Maastricht, The Netherlands)

Rafael Edem Kouto, Gwladys Gambie, and Rouzbey Shadpey in their studios at the Jan van Eyck Academie (October 2025, Maastricht, The Netherlands).

In the heart of Maastricht, the Jan van Eyck Academie stands as a quiet yet potent sanctuary for contemporary thought and creation. It is not an art school, nor a gallery, but something in between: a place where artists, designers, and thinkers from all over the world come together to reimagine what art can be when given time, trust, and tools.

Walking through the studios during the Open Studios days feels like entering parallel worlds. Each resident unfolds a vision that stretches beyond their discipline—woven through questions of history, identity, and repair. Among them this year: Rafael Edem Kouto, Gwladys Gambie, and Rouzbeh Shadpey — three distinct voices united by a shared urgency to heal and reimagine.

Rafael Edem Kouto

Rafael Kouto, a Swiss creative director and fashion designer of Togolese and Ghanaian origin, builds his practice on the ethics of reuse and cultural continuity. His work, deeply rooted in West-African material culture, embraces upcycling as both method and message. By transforming discarded textiles and objects, Kouto turns what was once waste into a vehicle of memory and renewal.

His ongoing project Artefacts & Notes from Altared Futures – Temporarily Closed for Healing examines portable artifacts that once travelled across the Atlantic with the slave trade — talismans, fabrics, small objects that survived displacement. Through these, Kouto forges an emotional connection between craft and spirituality, between what is lost and what can still be made sacred again.

Gwladys Gambie

From Martinique, still formally a French colony, Gwladys Gambie brings to Maastricht a dreamlike yet defiant visual universe. Her work explores the representation of Caribbean black bodies and the female condition under the long shadow of colonialism. Through drawing, painting, writing, and performance — and lately through embroidery — she builds an oneiric space where fantasy and critique meet.

In her project Metaphor of the Coconut Tree, Gambie confronts “doudouism,” the exoticized image of the Caribbean perpetuated by literature and tourism. Her hand-drawn portraits of trees and textile installations challenge the coconut’s lazy association with paradise, instead revealing the violence of history embedded in its trunk and leaves. Each stitch, each line, becomes an act of reclaiming narrative — turning ornament into testimony.

Rouzbeh Shadpey

Physician, writer, and artist Rouzbeh Shadpey brings the language of the clinic into dialogue with the language of poetry. His research unpacks the aesthetics of chronic fatigue and the colonial legacy of medical power. Through video, sound, and text, Shadpey transforms the experience of illness into a site of resistance — a way of thinking that honours those whose suffering has been dismissed as “medically contested.”

In his installation Musique Chronique, he stages a scenography that may or may not unfold into performance — an unfinished ritual about the transformation of pain into music. Elsewhere in the academy, a second intervention mirrors the first: not music as healing, but music as illness, a meditation on the dissonance between harmony and violence. His work resonates as both a lament and a call for empathy — an appeal for recognition of human vulnerability in times of devastation.

A house for multiplicity

Together, these artists exemplify what the Jan van Eyck Academie does best: it shelters voices that speak from fracture, from history, from the desire to mend. Here, discarded fabric becomes altar cloth; embroidery becomes resistance; sound becomes protest.

The academy’s studios are not quiet after all — they hum with the slow, persistent work of reimagining the world.

Jan van Eyck Academie

Rotterdam my City — De Hef — A Bridge for Life Itself

The Koningshavenbrug (better known as “De Hef”) - Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Across the northern edge of Rotterdam’s old harbor rises De Hef, the city’s iconic railway lift bridge — a monument of steel and symmetry. Built in 1927 to replace an older swing bridge destroyed in a ship collision, it was a marvel of its time: a vertical-lift bridge whose entire central span could rise to let ships pass beneath. For decades, trains thundered over it, carrying goods and passengers between north and south, its motion symbolizing the city’s pulse of progress.

When Rotterdam rebuilt after the Second World War, De Hef remained — scarred but standing, a survivor among ruins. It was finally decommissioned in 1993, after the construction of the rail tunnel that made it redundant. Yet public outcry saved it from demolition, and it became a protected monument, a silent figure in the skyline.

Then came a new dream. The Belgian architect Luc Deleu imagined giving De Hef an entirely different destiny — no longer a bridge for trains, but a bridge for life itself. In his visionary plan, the structure would become a civic platform suspended above the city: a place where every key event in human life — birth, marriage, death — would be officially declared. The bridge, with its 360-degree view over Rotterdam, would become a stage for existence, a place where the city could literally rise to mark its most intimate moments.

The plan was never realized, but its spirit endures. De Hef still towers over the water — a relic of movement, a monument to imagination, and a reminder that even in a city defined by rebuilding, some structures continue to lift not trains, but the human story itself.

Between Despair and Hope: The Sound of Ghanni Maastricht

Ghanni Maastricht performing at the Jan van Eyck Academie Open Studios Days (October 2025).

At the Jan van Eyck Academie, voices rose in harmony — soft at first, then firm, like a tide refusing to retreat. The choir Ghanni Maastricht, a collective of “Musicians for Palestine”, filled the air with Holm — Arabic for Dream.

The song, originally by the Tunisian artist Emel, speaks of imagining a world rebuilt from pain — a place where love and hope can grow again. Its words were written long before the present war, yet in the shadow of Gaza’s devastation they resonate with unbearable clarity:

If I could close my eyes and the dreams take me by the hand,
I would rise and fly in a new sky and forget my sorrows.

Since the attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023, and Israel’s two year devastating response, Gaza has become a symbol of suffering and endurance. Today, amid a fragile ceasefire, peace remains elusive — the future of the Palestinian people uncertain, suspended between grief and survival.

Ghanni’s performance did not pretend to offer solutions. Instead, it offered a space for compassion, a reminder that art can keep our humanity alive when politics fails. In their voices, sorrow turned into resistance, and music became a fragile bridge between despair and hope.