A Little Memory of The Beginning

Throughout their lifetime, my grandparents never shared much about our family history, but it has left its mark on my father's upbringing, and therefore also on me. Within this project I reflect on my Dutch-Indonesian background.

This project started with a picture of my grandmother, which was used to apply for Dutch citizenship in Indonesia (former colony of The Netherlands) in 1947. She was twenty one years old at the time. The title refers to a note she wrote on the back of this photo: A Little Memory of “The Beginning”. To me, this sentence has a double meaning. Firstly it refers to her personal experience at the time. It makes me wonder to what extent she was aware of what kind of beginning was starting? She grew up in the former colony speaking both Dutch and Malay, she knew all about Dutch history, she was able to sing the national anthem and could name all the names of the royal family by heart, but she had never been to the Netherlands before. Secondly, the title also has a literal meaning, because there is very little knowledge about this specific period in the life of my grandparents.

Based on what I do know, from family members and collective history, I think you could say that my grandfather was an example of someone who was both oppressed, as well as part of the oppression. From 1942 to 1943 he fought against the Japanse occupation in Indonesia as part of the Dutch army (KNIL) and was held hostage in a camp from 1943 to 1945 where he had to work on the Burma Railway. Afterwards, from 1946 to 1947 he had to serve the KNIL again, this time fighting the Indonesian revolution, during which approximately 100.000 Indonesian independence fighters and civilians have been killed. In 1951, my grandparents, together with their three eldest children, including my father, left by boat for the Netherlands. Once there, they wanted to integrate as quickly and as well as they could, but it turned out to be much more difficult than they expected. Throughout their lifetime, my grandparents never shared much about this period in their lives, but it has left its mark on my father's upbringing, and therefore also on me.

Within this project I reflect on my Dutch-Indonesian heritage. Through archival material, photography, video, drawing and text I try to trace fragmented family histories across time and geography. Through artistic research and embodied practices, like haptotherapy and family constellations, I’m trying to find new rituals to engage with inherited memory and the stories that remain unspoken. This results in a constellation of images that are intimate, partial and searching, which mirror the incomplete nature of diasporic memory and invite reflection on what it means to belong. In collaboration with publisher FW:Books (NL), I will present this project as a publication at the end of 2026.