The installation Lettre des Pays Bas (2016) in Waterloozaal at Paleis Soestdijk examines the idea of how history is dealt with. It explores how written conversation – letters – are a way of archiving, interpreting and preserving the past.
Consisting of a cascading pile of 20,000 pieces of paper – some blank, others showing fragments of text, folded in the style of 19th century correspondance – Lettre des Pays Bas references the many thousands of letters which survive in archives written around the time of Willem II of The Netherlands. As a great hero of the country, story has it he lead Europe to freedom from France in the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. Paleis Soestdijk was gifted to King Willem II by the people of The Netherlands as a token of their gratitude.
In this context Lettre des Pays Bas is arguably a quiet work. Not grandiose or overbearing, there is nevertheless something inherently off-kilter about it, something unmistakably out of place. Taking up almost the entire length of the stately ‘Waterloozaal’ (Waterloo Room), Lettre des Pays Bas stands in stark contrast to its opulent surroundings. Here against a backdrop of military portraits and heroic battle scenes, the work disrupts how this story is usually told. It confronts the viewer like a burst of confusion. Rather than confirming the visual narrative on display around it, our line of vision is immediately absorbed by this paper landscape. We are drawn into an imagined terrain informed by the rolling hills of Waterloo and the palace grounds.
But it is not the letters themselves which tell the stories – for Rijkenberg has chosen to print only fragments of text in both English and Dutch. Rather, it is that which remains unspoken that is on display: it is the myriad lives and voices that lived through the war years and remain unexamined in archives throughout the country. Ultimately Lettre des Pays Bas examines how an historical narrative is formed and what and who is left out. It asks the viewer to imagine alternative history of Waterloo. One which is not simplified by cartoon-like heroes acting out a story but a history rich with human experience: with loss and sadness, yearning and the mundane details of the everyday.
Lettre des Pays Bas was a part of the group exhibition !Bal curated by Anne van de Zwaag. The exhibition took place between 23th June till 25th september 2016 at Paleis Soestdijk.
Curator: Anne van der Zwaag
Design: Ricky Rijkenberg
Typographie: Carsten Klein
Text: Mahalia Mc Neil