It's not all hard work you know.
Just read a nice little article on dutch design portal design.nl in which Marie-Luce Bree, deputy director of the Foam Photography Museum in Amsterdam, talks about their photo project “New Greetings From”; which basically follows the tried and tested method of getting members of the public to submit photos and then using the best to create an exhibition.
In detail, “New Greetings From” requests contributors to submit photos showing their interpretation of what Holland look like, and that the image is positive.
But hey isn't everything in Holland!
And what does Holland look like? According to Marie-Luce Bree what often matters most to people is "nature, and even cows and tulips"
Genius.
And on the “New Greetings From” website, we've even found a few windmills.
What we've yet to see, however, is much in the way of Dutch furniture design.
Which is a shame.
For while Denmark positively gloats over it's furniture design heritage, Holland is much more reserved. Go to Copenhagen, Aarhus or Aalborg and you can't move without stumbling over the works of Verner Panton, Arne Jacobsen or Hans Wegner.
Indeed, the last time we were in Copenhagen we saw so many Panton chairs everything we saw started to take on a flowing, wave form.
In Holland, however, the local appreciation of the designers is much less. And that despite the talent on offer, the presence of self-confident producers such as moooi or droog and the strong interest among Dutch people for well designed and crafted designer furniture.
At the end of the day original designer furniture is just as at home in Amsterdam as in Copenhagen.
So we'd like to say to the peoples of the Netherlands, take part in “New Greetings From”, but take pictures that do Hella Jongerius, Marcel Wanders or Mart Stam proud. Make your dutch designers as famous and as culturally important as the Danes there's.
And yes it's OK to photograph the furniture next to a windmill, if you really must.
