Protest
This composition is full of protest. An angry person, wearing a Chanel shirt, throws a bottle. You’d expect a stone or a Molotov cocktail, but it’s a bottle with a Chanel logo. There are also letters on the right, referencing the protests by women in Iran—women who no longer wanted to be forced to wear […]
Typical Dutch
In the Netherlands, we have lots of rules and regulations, but we’re not always so strict about enforcing them. I notice this a bit because I work a lot with addicts and sometimes with young ex-offenders. We have laws, but we also try to be practical. I think this is a perfect example of that: […]
Say Yes
Just say YES—someone really did that and ended up having all sorts of adventures. Jim Carrey portrayed this in 2008 in the movie Yes Man and won an MTV Movie Award for it. Saying YES has something incredibly positive about it, which is why I find this message so beautiful. Say yes—yes to yourself, to […]
People are good
Rutger Bregman is a well-known Dutch historian who stirred things up at the 2019 Davos meeting of the world’s wealthy elite when he spoke about tax avoidance. We had already observed that the rich were getting richer at a rapid pace, and that hasn’t changed. Between 2019 and 2021, 63% of all wealth went to […]
ZAAP
I stumbled upon this by chance in Amsterdam Noord. I was doing a photoshoot with a well-known DJ and wandered around the area with him. The shoot went okay, though I thought it could’ve been better—but then again, I always think that. This composition was a nice bonus. It’s really just color, except for the […]
I can’t breathe
This graffiti is small and located in an unremarkable spot. I discovered it while I was dancing hard at a festival and needed to sit down for a moment. The image refers to one of those moments that changed history: the arrest and mistreatment of George Floyd, a Black man. The graffiti may be small, […]
Charlotte
Techno is probably the hardest and most intense style of house music; conceived in Frankfurt, born in Detroit, and now residing in Berlin. I regularly visit the famous clubs in the Friedrichshain district. The city of Berlin has even declared the music and its clubs as cultural heritage, which is a tribute to both the […]
Who is afraid of Red, Yellow and Black
I saw this stunning composition in an unexpected place, right in the heart of Amsterdam. I was visiting a friend, an artist who was temporarily living in a canal house through a special city program. The composition is wild, like raging flames that seem to use the posters beneath it as fuel. The lady in […]
Secretly danced
I found her at the NDSM site in Amsterdam, almost hidden, on a block of concrete. It looks as if she’s dancing while taming a rebellious lock of hair. Sometimes you catch that fleeting moment, when you see someone attractive making a graceful move. You’d want to dance with her, but the moment is already […]
Odin
The woman in the lower left fascinates me the most. Maybe it’s because I have a connection with the mythology of the ancient Vikings. To me, she represents Odin. Odin sacrificed one of his eyes to the giant Mimir in exchange for a drink from his magical well, granting him infinite wisdom. Odin also has […]