OPEN HOLLAND: EXPLORATION

Open Holland is part of the festival Stem Terug! Vote Back! at De Appel arts centre, Amsterdam in October 2012 curated by Belle Phromchanya and Yin Aiwen. During our master class, we aim to explore the limits of tolerance and democracy, and unravel the inner paradox of open-mindedness and conservative forces. The program is divided into 2 parts: the workshop with the guidance of Belle Phromchanya, and the Role Switch Debate lead by Yin Aiwen



WORKSHOP

Open Holland is an investigation into liberality, in a sense of how 'open' an individual can be towards cultural and political diversity. The workshop is to tackle on one challenge; How to make the audience (or the maker himself) who is more likely to support liberal ideology, understand more of those who is in the opposite? Within 5-days time frame, participants are expected to create a work in relation to the theme.


Overlapped Conversation by Belle Phromchanya


A short interview on Geert Wilders' point of view against Muslims and diverse culture. The subtitles are replaced with hatred comments on YOUTUBE regarding him and his ideology, revealing how inner conversation can easily take over the substance of what has been said, as it is almost impossible to receive two contradicting messages at the same time.



Tolerance by Mark Jan van Tellingen


In 2012, SIRE started a campaign for promoting tolerance because of (as mentioned on their website) the bad image that tolerance has at this moment.

To promote ‘tolerance’, they came up with a website and a short commercial on dutch television promoting tolerance as a core-dutch product. Tolerance was presented as a medicine, a product you can take to become a more tolerant person, someone who enjoys hobbies and multicultural food. Is this all tolerance has to offer? Is this really the dutch meaning of tolerance?

This presentation was an ironic attempt to deconstruct their meaning of the word, tolerance.



Integration of Pop Music, adjusted and perform by Janna Ullrich



Sandberg Institute by Belle Phromchanya







Sandberg Instituut is renowned for its international educational institution. 99% of communication that happen in the school is in English, the global language. Therefore I have proposed to change the name of the institute into the proper version; from 'Instituut' to 'Institute'. Questioning the notion of diversity and globalisation on one's identity; is this minor suggestion necessary or simply make no sense to those in the institute.



The Unknown Fear by Lenka Hamosova


The fear of the unknown is completely normal and natural emotion, and we know it from our childhood already. The only difference is how we treat these emotions. Rearranging the children games with closed eyes, the audience could experience this fear in a playful way without any social connotation and remember that after this barrier of fear, there is a pleasure of knowing something new and unseen.



The Most Beautiful Dutch Scene by Rasmus Svensson









Role Switch Debate  Video by Yin Aiwen


Special thanks to the participants

Belle Phromchanya
Mark Jan van Tellingen
Lenka Hamosova
Rasmus Svensson
Janna Ullrich

TYPE
Master Class, Debate

YEAR
2012

PLACE
De Appel Arts Center, Amsterdam