Amsterdam is a city known for its phenomenal museums, and in my opinion that reputation is well earned. This past weekend I visited a few of them, but I’d like to take some time to share about my favorite one: the Stedelijk Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. In all honesty, I popped into this gallery because the windows looked cool, and the student price was cheaper than most. As it turns out, it was well worth the visit.
A lot of the exhibits dealt with themes of immigration, immigration, and the current refugee crisis in Europe. One specific exhibit was called “I am a Native Foreigner”. The description of the exhibition began with a question: “What relationship do artists have to migration, and in what ways do they portray this theme?” I was compelled by the fact that the audience is introduced to the exhibit with a question, rather than a statement: leaving it up to the viewer to interpret the possible answers to this question as they are led through the gallery. The works featured in the exhibit dealt with migration in all stages of history: from immigrants arriving at Ellis Island in 1900 to current images of refugees on the coast of Spain. It was fascinating to see the evolution of depictions of this theme throughout time.
We begin the exhibition with Lewis Hine's photographs of Ellis Island immigrants. At the time of their creation, these straight shot, small-scale, black and white film photographs were groundbreaking. Hines’ work was bringing immigration to the eyes of a public that wasn’t largely aware of what it looked like. It was bringing about social change. As the work in the gallery drew closer to the modern day however, the presentation began to change. It was evident that the straight photography approach to depicting issues of migration wasn’t enough anymore. As it moved forward in time, the work became more complex. Barbara Vissers’ work consisted of 5 large-scale posters depicting an immigrant washed up on the beach. Her posters were jarring, large, and had a sort of strange feeling to them. They undoubtedly got the viewer’s attention.
Similarly, there was a video installment featuring a piece called Homeland by Halil Altindere. This piece wasn’t just attention grabbing, but attention demanding. The film depicted the risky journey many refugees make from the Middle East to Turkey and other places in Western Europe. The film was a mixture of staged scenes and scenes from reality, all set to a song Altindere created with rapper Abu Hajar, who is a Syrian refugee himself. It was jolting, both aurally and visually, and I couldn’t seem to take my eyes off of it.
I attribute this need for a change in visual format to the image-saturation of our current day and age. Sadly, straight photography and ‘snapshots’ are not enough to rattle people, or to draw their attention to important issues. We’re largely desensitized to violence and tragedy and to violent and tragic images. In order to demand people’s attention; in order to force them to really see what’s before them, photography and other artistic media needs to change its game – we need to press the envelope, and experiment with the boundaries of photojournalism and documentary photography/videography.
Another exhibit that stood out to me was called “The Crossing”. The installment was created by an artist named Carlos Motta. The exhibition features 12 screens in a dark room; each showing a short film in which a refugee sat before the camera and told their story. These refugees are all a part of the LGBTQ+ community. Motta takes an interest in the way that sexuality and gender intersects with larger social and politics topics, and his project looks at the way that LGBTQ+ refugees face multiple levels of discrimination, both at home and in the places they flee to. The way this installment is set up is genius – the room is dark save the screens displaying the videos, and the viewer walks up to each screen, sits on a bench, and puts on a pair of earphones to listen. It's as if you are sitting face to face with the person featured in the documentary.
I’ve always asserted that the human element – the personal stories – of documentary photography is what grabs attention: it’s what stirs hearts and sparks change. Motta’s video installment confirmed this notion for me. Motta chose a specific group of people, and gave them a platform to tell their stories in a straight-forward and honest way. This brought to my attention some of the limitations of photography. A still photograph of one of these individuals could not tell the mountainous story of their life, or their journey. Video media is better positioned to do this. In the case of telling the story of the LGBTQ+ refugees featured in “The Crossing”, video media was definitely the right tool to use.
Overall, I was very impressed with the Stedelijk Museum. I spent a lot of time there, and it gave me a lot of food for thought.