Blue Babies: A Quiet Protest That Refused to Disappear

Blue babies (protesting pensioners) by the Russian artist Gluklya, seen at the Museum van Bommel van Dam in Venlo.

I came across this work in the Museum van Bommel van Dam. It is Blue babies (protesting pensioners) by the Russian artist Gluklya.

At first, it looks like a simple painted piece of cloth showing a group of elderly people. But look a little closer, and the scene becomes stranger: the pensioners are holding soft bundles with small, blue faces—like fragile, improvised “babies.”

In this work, Gluklya turns a real event into something quiet but unsettling. The figures represent pensioners who protested against the closure of a small park in their neighbourhood. It was not a dramatic uprising, just a local action—but it mattered. The park was saved.

The image adds another layer to that story. The blue-faced “babies” suggest vulnerability—cold, neglect, something that needs care. By placing them in the arms of elderly people, the work gently shifts perspective. Those often seen as belonging to the past are here shown as carriers of something that still needs protection.

What begins as a small protest opens into a larger reflection. These figures are not only defending a park; they are claiming their place in society. In many cities, older people are everywhere, yet often overlooked. Here, they insist on being seen.

Once you know this, the cloth reads differently. What first feels fragile becomes deliberate. And the quiet presence of these protesters turns into a form of resistance that is hard to ignore.

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.

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?

’t Paeterke: Venlo’s Bronze Memory of the Dominicans (Venlo, The Netherlands)

‘t Paeterke, by Ger Janssen.

On Venlo’s Dominicanenplein stands ’t Paeterke—the Little Father—a bronze sculpture by local artist Ger Janssen. It honours the Dominican friars who lived here from 1892 until the early 21st century, first in the Trans-Cedron monastery and later beside the Kloosterkapel Mariaweide.

The chapel’s roots reach back to the early 15th century. Over the centuries it served as a beguine chapel, a pipe factory, a warehouse, even a carpentry shop, before war damage in WWII led to a major 1950s restoration. Today, it lives on as Domani, a vibrant cultural venue.

Janssen, known for capturing human expression in bronze, portrays the friar with quiet dignity—linking the square’s present to its monastic past. The Dominicanenplein itself emerged only in the late 20th century, when the city made the adjacent medieval Nieuwstraat car-free, creating a calm space where history still lingers.