We are happy to announce a new gallery opening!
After my grandmother died a lot of unexpected goods popped-up. One of them was a box of poetry books from Cilidio, Cecile van der Zand. In 1993 Cecile van der Zand published a poetry book named “masked in silence” by “cilidio”. The book is illustrated with drawings and poems about her daily life in Amsterdam.
She died in 2000 and a lot of her poetry books remain. Today we are presenting one of them. She died when I was 10 years old, she was the first introducing me to the life of an artist living in Amsterdam. Now I introduce her work to the borderscape and the passengers passing by.
This week a group of organisation organised: the alternative walking days. Normally in Nijmegen there would be “de 4-daagse”. 4 days of marching with 30, 40 or 50 km. Now with the corona it is not possible to join in this mass event. Although the hiking route in front of our house is now counting more hiking people on the tiny sand road. Therefore a fresh new gallery opening, with works from my aunt that passed away.
The poem “ No I don’t know my names” is my favourite. I did an attempt to translate it in English. The poem made me realise that not knowing countries and nationalities by their name has something liberating. Just as, naming the landscape of the border “the borderscape” gave me a new freedom. It helped to stop calling the landscape of “the border gallery” the landscape of Netherlands or Germany. The landscape started to own itself again. A landscape you don’t know which name it carries and what kind of people belong to it.
No I don’t know my names I just stare along traffic lights over sugar jars
sunken into serieus attempts To become one with a bus on a bumpy road Trying to trace down how this once started
unfortunately sinks are dropping sadly and Van Dale’s (A Dutch Dictionary) letters turn melancholic on their anchors no, I don’t know my names
- Cilidio
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