While many people might recognize her unibrow and bright color palette, most are unaware that the work of Mexican artist and activist Frida Kahlo (1910-1954) is deeply shaped by her disability. Frida’s lifelong struggle with her health eventually resulted in the amputation of her lower right leg in 1953. The prosthetic leg she used during […]
Tag: public history
Forgiven yet not forgotten: Victor Spencer’s execution
Twenty-one-year-old Private Victor Spencer was the last soldier during the First World War in the New Zealand army to be executed for desertion. His death was scarcely mentioned afterwards, as the fact was a great shame to his family and country. However, the silence changed after 2000 when the Pardon for Soldiers of the Great […]
Breaking habits: The Breathalyser
It’s finally back in business: the pubs are open again, people are dancing in nightclubs and the drinks are flowing. In the countryside, people are eagerly awaiting the fair and the whole of the Netherlands is hoping that carnival will be back to normal. This is often accompanied by the necessary amounts of alcohol, something […]
A very ‘skulled’ professor
In Dutch, we say that people who have a talent to learn languages have a ‘talenknobbel’, the same goes for a talent for math: a ‘wiskundeknobbel’. These expressions literally mean that someone with one of these talents has a bump on their head that shows their special ability. Long ago, in the 18th and 19th century, […]
Deafness: Something to be cured?
Since time immemorial, humans have coped with deafness by using hearing aids. These were often trumpet-like, designed to focus soundwaves and channel them into the ear. However, these tools only amplified sound, and thus were only useful to people who were hard of hearing. Those who were completely deaf instead developed sign languages to communicate. […]
Vincent: Beyond the troubled mind
When asked about Vincent van Gogh, most people answer: he’s the crazy painter that cut off (part of) his ear, right? Although he’s best known for his work, his personal anguish comes a close second. We know a lot about his life because a great deal of the letters that he wrote have been preserved: […]
Mapping Slavery: making the passive past present
Nowadays street names, statues and buildings are part of a heated debate about how we deal with our slavery history. Activists and some experts plead for more attention to the more controversial side of the persons we named our streets and buildings after and who we have literally put on a pedestal, like Peter Stuyvesant. […]
Unwrapping Slavery
How do you deal with a problem you easily get lost in? You draw up a map! That is what the creators of Mapping Slavery thought of when they launched the internationally known public history project about Dutch history of slavery. Other than the German Stolperstein project which focusses on the victims of national socialism, […]
Can you save Superman? Queer blood could
Art by Jordan Eagles used in the online exhibition Can you save Superman? for the Leslie-Lohman museum In 1981 several, previously healthy gay men got seriously ill from pneumonia or cancer in Los Angeles, New York and California. At the end of the year 270 men suffered from (auto-)immune disease. 121 men died. Some people […]
Bottom-up History – Stories from the Streets
Have you ever wandered through the Amsterdam Red Light District and wondered how these people came to work there? Or maybe you have felt hesitant to approach a homeless person in your city even though their story intrigues you. This interest in life at the bottom of the social ladder is completely normal, since it […]