HIDDEN PLACES
KadS 2015 [Kunst aan de Schinkel]
Soledad Senlle Art Foundation is organizing the third edition of KadS[Art at the Schinkel]in South Amsterdam. Ten artists have been invited to produce new work in the public space in this neighbourhood, based on the theme of Hidden Places. The title is not only intended to suggest the notion of concealed and anonymous, local sites, but also that of the hidden places in ourselves. By means of site-specific artistic interventions, these hidden places will be temporarily revealed.
What is involved in the hidden places in the city and what was their significance in the past? There are places that we pass by many times, but which we don’t really know or else have failed to notice properly. These sites conceal stories and secrets. Have these hidden places remained hidden for a reason?
For instance there is the former House of Detention on the Havenstraat; with its domed roof and barred windows, this is a formidable building. And yet many residents of Amsterdam, even in the actual neighbourhood, do not know that it was a prison until quite recently, or that it was used during the Second World War to incarcerate members of the Dutch resistance and others who gave support to people who had gone underground. Many of them were executed by firing squad in the courtyard of the prison.
Another concealed site is the cellar under the Zeilbrug. A small flight of steps under the bridge leads to a fascinating room that formerly housed the hydraulic gear used to raise and lower the bridge. On the corner by Soledad Senlle behind a dense hedge of trees and shrubs the ancient graveyard of Huis te Vraag lies hidden. With its overgrown tombstones, it has been converted by its administrator, the artist Leon van der Heijden into a green miracle, which has so far only been discovered by a few people.
Hidden, anonymous places can also serve as a metaphor for the invisible side of human beings. Everyone has had ideas or fantasies that, consciously or otherwise, remain in their minds – desires, dreams or fears that are never openly acknowledged, expressed or acted on. The artists involved in the project have been asked to explore the inner self as a hidden place in human beings, the place where the soul may dwell. It is the choice of each individual what one feels able to reveal to the outside world and what one prefers to keep hidden. Another person can therefore only partially become acquainted with the deepest essence of any individual.
These internal, invisible places and the hidden sites in the public space will be temporarily revealed by the artists involved in KadS 2015. Visitors, passers-by and residents of the neighbourhood will be able to engage in a dialogue with what the artists are disclosing or else withholding. Between creation and interpretation lies the unnameable: our own hidden image that we have of something, someone or ourselves.
In addition to an art route past the art projects on various sites, educational guided tours, artist’s talks and lectures are planned.
The artists taking part are Virginie Dubois, Roos Groothuizen, Lennart Lahuis, Ola Lanko, Lucia Luptáková, Jeroen van Loon, Isabel Miquel Arques, Emmeline de Mooij, Leonard van Munster, Michiel van Nieuwkerk; Olivier de Sagazan will perform at the opening.