Outside the museum that once started with one of the earliest public collections of the ethnographic type, the Volkenkunde Museum in Leiden, hangs a huge poster with different photographs on it of all kinds of people from all over the world. Pronto the attention of the soon-to-be-visitor is drawn to the different faces on the […]
A Journey Back in Time Through the Eyes of a German Doctor: an Analysis of Het Sieboldhuis
The Japanese people have evolved greatly since abandoning their isolationist attitude originating from 1854. Their isolationist attitude caused Japan to be a rather closed society that did not accept any foreign intervention, cultures and influences. However, the Dutch Republic was allowed to establish a trading post on the artificial island Deshima, near Nagasaki. This trading […]
Museum Hoge Woerd, a treasure? – an analysis of the exhibition ‘3000 years of living and working in Leidsche Rijn’
Leidsche Rijn, by archaeologist and poet Esther Jansma (English version is my own translation) This poem by Esther Jansma is on one of the walls in the exhibition “3000 jaar wonen en werken in Leidsche Rijn” (3000 years of living and working in Leidsche Rijn). I think a lot of people would agree […]
The use of the audio guide at the Verzetsmuseum. Should we resist?
Yesterday I went to see the exhibition ‘Explosiegevaar!’ in the Vetzetsmuseum in Amsterdam. This exhibition is all about the attack on the Amsterdam population register on the 27th of March 1943. On this date a group of Dutch resistance members blew up – and set on fire – the population register, in order to destroy […]
Small Jurassic park in Boxtel: Start the hunt on dinosaurs!
Oertijd Museum is a museum in Boxtel about the prehistory and dinosaurs for children. The museum is focussed on bringing prehistoric times back to life in an educational way. In the summer of 2017 the museum launched a new app for mobile devices where you need to hunt dinosaurs that are broken out of the […]
The Canals Digitized: Is it watertight?
Wandering about the canals of Amsterdam, it’s rather easy to get lost between all the beauty. Many new students to the city, including myself, must have had a hard time to figure out how to get to the university without walking in circles. Since the year 2011 the city has a museum dedicated especially to […]
Is the future of paper online?
Digital is hot! Nowadays nearly everything and everyone is online. Within public history digitalisation seems to be the new fancy plaything, which is used more frequently. Many museums and archives started to create digital catalogue that showcase their objects. During the research for my Bachelor’s thesis last year, which was about the representation of Ganymede’s […]
To each their own historic walking tour?
Recently, I moved to Amsterdam and, so far, I don’t know my neighborhood very well. So I thought it was high time get to know my nearest environs. What could be more suitable than a walking tour through my district? After a quick search on the internet, I was sure: I was going to go […]
The overestimated value of digitization
Walking through the corridors and rooms of the Museum Volkenkunde gives you the feeling you just entered a whole different world. Exhibitions about Australian artworks and Indonesian bronzes at the one hand, and exhibitions about pilgrimages to Mecca at the other hand: every corner of our world is exhibited in this museum. On its website, […]
The “New” Muralists and “Melted” Identities
As a Greek native, my knowledge about Latino and Latin American identities was quite limited; hence I consider myself very fortunate to have had the opportunity to read the “Brokering Identities” article by Mari Carmen Ramirez. When I finished reading it, the first thing that came to my mind was a discussion I had one […]