The past is full of horror stories. But what if the present can haunt you too? Halloween is around the corner, and we want to reveal some alternate horror stories…
We’re building up a guided tour of moments and places in Amsterdam where people have had a very real encounter with colonialism. In the present day.
Some of us have been in conversations where people have very casually said that, oh, they didn’t realise that a particular country had been colonised by the Dutch.
Or someone might be thinking, “but it wasn’t all bad, toch?” about colonialism.
Maybe there’s a sense of disappointment that the tradition of Zwarte Piet cannot be freely celebrated. Or a colleague make comments like “times have changed, and that we need to move on from the past.”
What do these moments mean? And what do they tell us about the pervasive and persisting nature of colonialism?
During this tour we are presenting five such stories.
We are going to shine a light on these ghosts of colonialism that are walking amongst us today.
The tour is shaped by five different experiences people have had in Amsterdam. Moments where people have had a very real encounter with colonialism - in the present day. A group of seven came together to bring these horror stories to life. Each experience has been developed through a combination of poetry, images, spoken word, videos and voice recordings.
More about the process of developing these eye opening stories will be published here after the tour.
Join the tour to have all your senses brought to life with these deeply personal stories.
Dry runs!