An artist’s view on women’s history

After my research into my forgotten foremothers, I became super interested in women’s history, and social history about women in particular. I know, men are super interesting too, but a lot has been said by them and about them and women need to catch up. The same goes for rich and noble people. Yes, the rich and famous lived very interesting lives and there are heaps of information to find about them, but the largest part of the population wasn’t rich and famous, and these perspectives are often ignored.

New project and exhibition at NDSM Fuse

I have started a collaboration with artist Pam Wessels. Pam and I have both found secrets in our family histories; a foremother declared insane, one with a secret ethnicity and one in a same-sex relationship.

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These stories were kept silent for generations — out of fear, shame, or social pressure. In our artworks, we reconstruct those lost voices and explore what it means to retell them today. Must everything be remembered, or is forgetting sometimes a form of protection?

The exhibition at NDSM Fuse (Amsterdam - September 2026) presents our individual works in dialogue, complemented by a collaborative piece and audio fragments from our search. The show invites visitors to reflect on identity, memory, and the power of women’s histories that have often faded from the collective memory.

Diversity in history

I do also want to mention that I don’t deliberately only talk about women and men. I know there must have been people in history that different feelings about their gender, but they are difficult to find. People were exclusively registered as male or female, and there weren't the same words and expressions to describe ones feelings about their gender. Without diaries or letters, it is almost impossible to find out how people felt. And they are very rare among ordinary people. However, Anne Lister's diary is a rare exception and I recommend reading it, if you are interested in this subject.

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As an artist, I can use a bit more imagination than a real historian. I did find an great-great-aunt who might not have identified as female, would she have been alive today. It is, however, only one of my assumptions, based on the information I found and I cannot draw any real conclusions. You can see the work I made about great-great-aunt Gidia at the exhibition at NSDM Fuse.

It is going to be a busy year, and I want to keep you up-to-date on the progress, but I am going to have to divide my time between a lot of different, and equally important matters. Maybe you could follow me on YouTube, that’s a thing for me too, now!