sluiten

Nieuwsarchief

• Januari 2010

  • Kunstproject Het Blauwe Huis op IJburg is afgesloten
  • The Blue House art project on IJburg is finished

• December 2009

  • Laatste dagen van Het Blauwe Huis zijn geteld

• November 2009

  • Blue Print: overzicht gesprekken december (dd. 15 dec)
  • Blue Printing: december 2009, sluiting van Het Blauwe Huis
  • Brief Daniela Paes Leao
  • Letter Daniela Paes Leao
  • Film Car hotel

• Oktober 2009

  • Blue House Cinema
  • Car hotel
  • IJBOARD poster is klaar!

• September 2009

  • Premiere Soundtrackcity: geluidswandeling IJburg
  • Kinderbibliotheek Leesjeblauw verhuist op woensdag 9 september 2009

• Augustus 2009

  • City Telling IJburg van 10 t/m 12 augustus
  • IJBOARD: het gezicht van IJburg
  • Locating the Producers - Paul O'Neill
  • OUT OF THE BLUE / Biographies
  • OUT OF THE BLUE/ Route description

• Juli 2009

  • filmpjes Air Out Your Dirty Laundry
  • The Blue House goes Out of the Blue
  • OUT OF THE BLUE / symposium tickets
  • OUT OF THE BLUE / program

• Juni 2009

  • IJ-BOARD. De laatste week gaat in!

• Mei 2009

  • Tentoonstelling studenten Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht
  • M7red: Staging Cities

• April 2009

  • Kunstroute Zeeburg: 18 en 19 april van 12.00-18.00

• Maart 2009

  • Reuze periscoop geeft IJburg zijn uitzicht terug
  • Teken de petitie Uitzicht op!
  • Woensdag 25 maart 13.00-17.00: Kunstbus Noordje op Wielen
  • Zaterdag 28 maart: De kunst van het samenleven
  • Het Nieuwe Gezin. Een verslag van Anique Weve
  • Verslag; The (un)making of IJburg
  • Zaterdag 14 maart 15.00: Een 'maakbare' samenleving
  • Hands-on Utopia
  • Uitzicht op! Een nieuwe kijk op IJburg
  • Zaterdag 7 maart 15.00: Ideaal Wonen
  • Beeldverslag filmavond Women Only 12 februari

• Februari 2009

  • Filmpje: Buurtkroket op IJburg door Tilmann Meyer Faje
  • Zaterdag 28 februari 15.00 Rondleiding door de stilte
  • www.zzpijburg.ning.com

• Januari 2009

  • 'Inbraak' op uitnodiging
  • Start A New Art World, Model VII, Vendex Mekka - Ad de Jong
  • Uitzending debat IJburg 28 januari op Salto TV

• December 2008

  • Debat IJburg - De kunst van het samenleven

• Oktober 2008

  • Herdenk de Schipholbrand met ons

• September 2008

  • Rondleiding door de Stilte
  • Public Art Online: The Blue House by David Drake
  • Trailer: Freedom to question by Daniela Paes Leao

• Augustus 2008

  • ZZP Website brainstorm
  • Jongerenproductie: YouthParty 17 augustus 14.00-20.00
  • Jongerenproductie: YouthParty 17 augustus 14.00-20.00

• Juli 2008

  • Workshops voor jongeren op IJburg
  • Workshops voor jongeren op IJburg
  • Nieuwsbrief 25
  • Leesjeblauw met vakantie tot 13 augustus
  • Workshops jongeren: inrichting Productiehuis

• Juni 2008

  • Bonentuin Rudy Luijters
  • ZZP netwerkbijeenkomst

• Mei 2008

  • Radioverslag ZZP verzameling in Blauwe Huis.
  • Onzichtbaar ondernemerschap op IJburg

• April 2008

  • Middenstand op IJburg tot bloei gekomen

• Maart 2008

  • Rap on IJburg

• Februari 2008

  • Radio Ruisriet M2M live!
  • Nieuwsbrief 24
  • Nieuwsbrief 23

• Januari 2008

  • Voorlezen elke laatste woensdagmiddag van de maand om 14.00 uur

• December 2007

  • Nieuwsbrief 22
  • Radio Ruisriet M2M 7 december
  • Spreekuur op IJburg stopt
  • Film: Chill-ROOM
  • Pump off the Blue, 1 december
  • Zaterdag 1 december: Samenhangen
  • Nieuwsbrief 21

• November 2007

  • Radio Ruisriet M2M 23 november
  • 17 november: Vernal Equinox & presentatie lichtobject
  • Nieuwsbrief 20
  • Ruisriet M2M 16 nov: What kills the migrant?
  • ALMOSTyou
  • Waarschuwing
  • Radio M2M 2 november

• Oktober 2007

  • Special Schipholbrand 26 oktober
  • Radio Ruisriet 19 oktober
  • Radio Ruisriet M2M 12 oktober
  • Ruisriet M2M 5 oktober

• September 2007

  • Film Legrain en Beauvent
  • Speciale last minute actie voor IJburgers
  • Programma Autohotel
  • Gezocht: medewerkers Autohotel
  • Filmpje: Autohotel door Olga Russel
  • Nieuwsbrief 19
  • Radio Ruisriet M2M 28 september
  • Filmpje: Identiteitbouwer door Daniela Paes Leao
  • Filmpje Blauwe Huis Cinema door Jessie Vreden
  • Filmpje Autohotel door Bright TV
  • 3 oktober: Peter Faber vertelt geheimzinnige verhalen
  • 22 september: Blok 35 Party
  • Radio Ruisriet M2M 21 september
  • Proeflokaal
  • Moeders’ Mooiste: IJburg in tekeningen
  • Nieuwsbrief 18
  • Just another idea....
  • Radio Ruisriet M2M 14 september
  • 8 september: 'Scene's from the Balcony'
  • Nieuwsbrief 17
  • Radio Ruisriet M2M 7 september
  • 1 september: extra kamer voor Het Blauwe Huis
  • Presentatie 'Atlas of Suggestion' 1-9 September

• Augustus 2007

  • Radio Ruisriet 31 augustus
  • Radio Ruisriet 24 augustus
  • Radio Ruisriet is back
  • 11 augustus: Zomerborrel "Get Connected"
  • Nieuwsbrief 15
  • Sustainable Skybox & Proeflokaal

• Juli 2007

  • Nieuwsbrief 14
  • Leesjeblauw & Bloemen voor IJburg
  • 14 juli: Presentatie Chill-ROOM
  • Film: Two Bikes to Borrow

• Juni 2007

  • The Blue House
  • Opening 'Pump Up The Blue' 2 juni 2007

• Mei 2007

  • Particulier initiatief helpt IJburg aan gemeenschappelijke voorziening

• April 2007

  • (Z)IJ-power: vrouwen netwerken in IJburg

• Februari 2007

  • Sakho schildert trauma van zich af

• November 2006

  • Uitkijkpost - inkijkpost

• September 2006

  • Film: Jong zijn op IJburg door JAA!

• Mei 2006

  • A home for nonconformity
  • Creatieve broedplaats in nieuwbouwwijk

• April 2006

  • Chewing the fat

• Maart 2006

  • Cultuur en ontmoeting in Het Blauwe Huis
  • Teatro del chat, justo para el siglo XXI
  • Rozengeur

• September 2005

  • Mijn kunst is gemeenschapskunst

• Mei 2005

  • Blauwe Huis op IJburg moet broedplaats zijn

• April 2005

  • Jonge moeders

• Maart 2005

  • Brief van Tanja Karreman aan Het Blauwe Huis

• Juni 2004

  • Kunst op IJburg

• Mei 2004

  • Kunst redt leegstaande villa

sluiten

Dear future Blue House resident,

I’m thinking about last winter. About how I arrived at The Blue House, as one of its first residents, without any idea of what I wanted to do, without plans or a project. I was totally open to the experience of living in a new suburb – especially to living on new ground and in the centre of a housing block as well planned as Block 35. Suddenly I was part of something that typifies Dutch people on a worldwide scale: ‘reclaiming land’.

How do they build an island all in one go? How can they plan an entire community there all in one go? Is that possible? Will it work? Those are the first thoughts of someone not yet accustomed to such an organised society. But there were also other questions that came to my mind during my first month there: How do I deal with this residential district? What is my position within this experiment? How do I view this artificial place? In the beginning I felt completely lost. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. The reality was that there was no community structure yet: there were no places to meet, people hardly knew one another and a conscience had not yet emerged.

So I started by just looking around. We know that observing is organising, perhaps also judging and certainly making compositions. However, I wanted to observe in a scientific way. With a neutral gaze. I remembered Foucault and his description of science in the seventeenth century; he used biology, I think, as his example. His idea of equivalence: people began to discover the world and classify things according to this concept. They devised groups and families according to common characteristics. That was a way of building up knowledge. Based on the same philosophy, I began taking an endless series of photographs – to record an impression of IJburg based on a gaze directed only at forms, the way a foreigner observes. That’s how I started to make a portrait of IJburg.

Yet a simple portrait was surely not enough, don’t you agree? I knew I had to do more. I was missing the human aspect of IJburg. You know, one of the things that may have confused me more was the idea of conceiving a residential area from inside an office. Because of course a neighbourhood is more than just houses and streets. There are also shops, infrastructure, and above all, people. How then is it possible to plan a community? Or did the project developers not worry about that? I’ve often heard that IJburg is the latest variant of the VINEX subdivision: ‘comparable to a nineteenth-century district in Amsterdam’, said Lia, who was involved in the IJburg project as a sociologist. Yet surely these nineteenth-century districts grew organically? They didn’t just appear out of nowhere! They certainly went through various stages. Do you really think it can just happen all at once now? I don’t know. Jacques Tati’s film Mon Oncle is a good illustration of this, contrasting the artificiality of the modern community with the old neighbourhood that has evolved organically. Of course reality is not as black-and-white as Tati shows. But you need extreme examples to start a good conversation.

Mon Oncle also brought me to another subject: history. What is the history of this district? If we look at IJburg as an urban design project, we can say that it fits in the tradition of VINEX subdivisions that have been built in the Netherlands since the 1980s. We can also make a connection with two other well-known districts in the Amsterdam area: the Bijlmer and Almere. The latter may be nominally a city, but its dependency on Amsterdam means it can be treated as a city district. In terms of the type of its buildings, I think IJburg is somewhere between these two examples. What can we learn from the problems of these two districts? What did the creators of IJburg do differently, and why?

However, because a residential area is also created by the people who live there, and because people bring along their past, their customs and their values, I also had to record the history of these city residents somehow. Where did they come from? I just went to visit people. I asked them about the path they had travelled in life, the cities they had lived in, and I asked them for photographs of these places. Of course when you’re visiting someone you always chat about life, about the neighbourhood. Soon I began recording these chats. And then each chat became a whole interview about a variety of subjects. That’s how I arrived at the structure of my project.

They often talked about nature. We know that half of the Netherlands is man-made, and that pure nature no longer exists. I’m suddenly reminded of something Ernesto de Sousa, a Portuguese artist, once said: ‘Nature is a historical error.’ That idea fits the Dutch landscape. From that standpoint it’s rather odd that Dutch people are so keen to preserve an area that is entirely artificial – like the IJmeer – and that they call the Diemerpark a nature park.

Plans, plans, plans. Dutch people plan everything down to the smallest detail, even a community: 30% socially subsidized properties, 40% free-market properties and 30% rental properties. Planning doesn’t go so far as to stipulate exactly who is to live there, but the way everything is planned leaves no room for anyone who doesn’t fit in the plans. Lia hopes that this will foster contact among people of different social classes. Even some residents of Block 35 expect this: Marinus too thinks that a mixed population is best for the city. As Maggy puts it: ‘The more we know about one another the fewer prejudices there are.’ That sounds great, but the reality is otherwise. According to some other residents, this mixed community is precisely the problem: ‘To start with, just the fact that they’re property owners and we’re tenants,’ says Chaja Yeah, it’s not all sweetness and light in this kind of planned community.

But it was the issue of ‘social control’ that surprised me more. This issue came to the fore during a conversation with a group of IJburgers after they had seen the Dutch film De Noordelingen at a fellow resident’s suggestion. We talked about how people look at one another and keep an eye on what goes on in the neighbourhood. It emerged that people are more concerned about looking ‘normal’ than about resolving their actual problems. I think social control has more of an institutional quality, and of course there are two sides to this. It’s guided by the authorities. After all, in planning a city district like this, they consider what organisations and facilities are suited to a certain social level. These must be facilities that attract a particular audience and have a particular image. They’re not keen on street trade, for instance, preferring a trendy pseudo-hippie beach café that can generate publicity for IJburg. There are also organisations like the Timon commune, which helps young people lead independent lives. But no soup kitchen or a shelter for the homeless. The Timon families are all genuinely nice people and their work is very important for our society and especially for those young people. They definitely represent the good side of this ‘social control’. But… the other organisations – why aren’t they here? Are they too dangerous for a residential district such as this?

And that is another problem that I can already see in IJburg. They’re building the perfect residential district to keep their children safe, but they’re forgetting that outside IJburg reality is very different. Even in the city centre. Yeah… of course it’s nice to let your child play outside and have adventures. But the greater the protection, the greater the shock when they come face to face with the real city. And that will undoubtedly generate problems in the future. I remember a conversation with Mauricio and Pio of m7red, Argentinean fellow residents of The Blue House. They told me about the ‘gated condominiums’ in South America and about how the atmosphere there resembles IJburg. About how children who live in city centres are more prepared for the dangers of the street. Is IJburg the best solution?

I don’t have any answers. And that’s not what this project is about. This project is in fact about all those questions that occurred to me and that were raised by residents of Block 35 as well. I’ve tried to provide insight into all these questions on The Blue House website (www.blauwehuis.org) and hope you, as a future resident, can delve into them further.

It was definitely an exciting winter I spent in The Blue House.

Love,

Daniela