In 1602, the Dutch established the Dutch East India Company (VOC) and became a dominant European power for almost 200 years. After ages of trade, the Netherlands established the Dutch East Indies as a nationalised colony which was one of the most valuable colonies under European rule and contributed to Dutch global prominence in spice and cash crop trade in the 19th and early 20th century. The Dutch exploited the native population and implemented a strong colonial social order that was based on rigid racial and social structures. The population was roughly divided into four groups: Europeans, Easterners - such as Chinese and Japanese landowners, Indo-Europeans (the Indische community) and the indigenous people. Each group had its own status, with associated rights and obligations. In the early 20th century, when nationalism globally arose, local intellectuals began developing the concept of ‘Indonesia’ as a nation state which set the stage for an independence movement.

The Indo-European, or Indische, community thought differently about Dutch rule than the local, Indonesian population. The latter rejected Dutch presence completely, while the Indische community stood open for collaboration with the Dutch. During the Second World War, the Japanese occupied the Dutch East Indies from 1942 until 1945. Both Dutch and Indo-European prisoners of war were imprisoned and tortured in Japanese internment camps, as well as in separate camps which existed for Dutch and Indo-European civilians. After the Second World War, on 17 August 1945, Soekarno declared Indonesian independence together with Mohammad Hatta. This resulted in a four-year guerrilla warfare for Indonesian independence against Dutch colonial rule in which Indonesian nationalists fought against the Dutch forces and pro-Dutch civilians. This was also the historical period known in Dutch history as ‘Politionele Acties’ (‘Police Actions’) in reference to the two major military offensives undertaken by the Netherlands on Java and Sumatra against the Republic of Indonesia. After four years of war, the Netherlands officially acknowledged Indonesia’s independence in 1949. Between 1945 and 1968, more than 300,000 of Indische civilians (Indo-Europeans) migrated from the former Dutch East Indies to the Netherlands.

How would you continue pulling the line from past history to a history that hasn't been born yet?

How would you follow the line from the bygone past to a past that hasn't been born yet?

Which kinds of instruments do you have to follow this line?

What kinds of conditions?

I came from a part of the world that had been colonised for centuries by that country, once the origin of our fathers and grandfathers.

That country we had to reconcile with after a toilsome reception. That fairyland we got acquainted with through hearsay, education and contacts with the rulers—rulers who made us into Dutch nationals under the misconception that their position of power would stand the test of time. That country our children would feel attached to over the years, thanks to birth, even if not entirely in soul.

The question remains: which part of the history would be recorded in the annals of the welcoming country and which would be excluded? Thinking of my parents…

Before we went ashore it already dawned on us what the new country would expect from us: to turn our backs on our history and above all not to stop looking forwards. Valuables were confiscated, even wedding rings and photographs in an old shoebox.

A couple of months after our arrival at the end of 1952, we got our photographs back, no more than a quarter, with an apology letter that the rest had gotten lost in the bureaucratic chaos.

To history writers, photographs are important tools to prevent stories from being banned from the history of mankind. Ordinary mortals such as me, however, limit ourselves generally to what we don't want to forget—images in order to find comfort in the dead of winter. Those are the threads that connect us with the past and help us to find our way to the future. Without past, no future! Only animals live in the present, as far as we know now.

As it goes, when becoming older, while the present is shrinking, the future only shows itself as a thin line at the horizon, the past grows larger and larger.

My parents’ last years were overwhelmed with unbearable images and flashbacks. I still remember how I brought my mother back to reality by clicking with my fingers right under her eyes. The photographs that could have comforted them showed the gaps caused by the loss of the other ones, years before. Their memory couldn’t restore the missing laughing faces. After my mother's passing, my father couldn’t live anymore with the gaps and destroyed a major part of what remained—except for a few which were able to escape from his anger, thanks to his half-blind eyes. These ones are now in my possession.

People whose history ends in the bureaucratic trash are excluded from the questions I posed at the beginning of this writing. This process continues over generations, until a new generation would stand up to tie the threads together, not allowing itself to be sent away without response to their questions.

Gaps must not be lost either.

They represent the empty spaces between the sentences. Those spaces are the breeding grounds of new stories, new questions that must be answered.

My parents had to find comfort in a country that literally relegated their history to the trash. To me, finding comfort is more than just crying on someone's shoulders. It's the understanding that this world isn't only a miracle from a technical viewpoint, but also from an imaginary one. To do my work as an artist, I had to overcome physical and mental problems. I had to use and combine all my imaginary and intellectual strength. During that process, I discovered little by little that I am part of the Great Story anyway—even when not belonging to anyone, any group. Realising this as a fact I couldn't deny gave me comfort and something to hold on to. The moment I got it, I was able to open myself to the connecting links that helped me to transcend my own history, get to the bottom of it, and to reach out to the histories of other people. I was able to say: “This is my life. Live it!”

That made it possible for me to start looking for an answer to the questions from the beginning of this piece of writing. I came to the conclusion that it is pretty much okay to live with the gaps in my life because of the fact that we all can find, everywhere in the world, archetypal stories that have a connecting link with our own. We just must want it. I was mistaken to believe that mine and my parents' story had no association with the world's history of mankind. Just because of the confiscation of some pictures and the exclusion of my family's history and future. The echo of all this is found in my work.

How do you make the human resilient against the human without the loss of… humanness?

What does that involve, actually?

My life began on September 6, 1947 in a leper colony in Plantungan on the island Java in Indonesia. The struggle for independence was in full swing. My parents had lost everything. Besides their own clothes, they had nothing with which to dress me at my birth. Luckily, there was the library. They soaked the linen from the books and sewed baby clothes from it. They deliberately picked out the titles they would use.

We went to the Netherlands in 1952. After we went ashore in Rotterdam, my parents saved the clothes at the very last minute from the hands of the Dutch social workers who wanted to send them with the garbage men, due to their supposed lack of hygiene and irrelevance to our stay in our new homeland. We came to live in the leper colony Heidebeek in the Netherlands. I got them back as a gift of war. They become an integral part of my artistry.

The titles were:

My pillow: The Dictates of One’s Conscience by Hart Caine, an Irish writer.

My little blouse: Tarzan and the Lion Man by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

First nappy: Only for Sinners - the author became unreadable.

Second nappy: No title, but the colours of the Indonesian flag.

The clothes represent everything life stands for.

You will find more information about the story of the Dutch leper colony Heidebeek:

Just Published: Productive Archiving: Artistic Strategies, Future Memories, & Fluid Identities by Ernst van Alphen. Publisher: Valiz.