Amsterdam Nieuw-West
In Amsterdam Nieuw-West, Garden Collectives is part of Bureau Postjesweg – a project space and growing collective of artists and curators situated next to the Postjesweg metro stop in the New-West apartment complex.
Nieuw-West is a city district in Amsterdam built in the 1950s as part of the urban expansion plans called The Western Garden Cities. Built around the Sloterplas lake and designed by modernist architect Cornelis van Eesteren, Nieuw-West is characterized by its spacious layout of streets, parks, courtyards, and small affordable housing. Since the 1970s, migrant families have started to settle here. Today, the Modernist-designed city district also hosts (student) hotels, luxury flats, cultural co-working spaces, and projects for refugees. Within this mix of contrasts, the ground plan of the Garden City is still intact. This has been the starting point to initiate a series of events, presentations, and gatherings.
Participating in our 2019 - 2022 program are artists Erik Hagoort, Lyuba Matyunina, Constance Hinfray, Wineke Gartz, Isabel Cordeiro, curators Mariska van den Berg and Francesca Masoero (LE18, Marrakech), film maker Farida Benlyazid, architect Olaf Gipser, participants Amal Al Sidi, Fer van der Reijken, Gosewijn van Nieuwenhuizen, Tayfun Balcik, Tini Knook, all participants of the Art Summer School, and partners New Metropolis, Nisa 4 Nisa, Lab 6, and Van Eesteren Museum.
Oasis of Tighmert
In line of researching garden culture in Morocco since 2012, specifically Fez, the oasis represents the archetype. Joining the anual artist gathering Caravane Tighmert in 2017 was the starting point to observe how ongoing processes of urbanization are affecting its ecology and community.
Tighmert is a village at an oasis that is part of the rural commune of Asrir. It is located 458 km South of Marrakech, Morocco. The oasis comprises a 10 km long and 4 km wide strip of palm trees and is home to 600 families of the Saharouian Azwafit and the Berber Ait-Hmad tribe. A refined network of canals guides the village’s water to a labyrinth of garden plots.
The history of Tighmert connects to the culture and economies provided by the caravan routes that used to connect the Sahel region to Europe. The Saharan trade continued until the 20th century, when the routes of the caravans became blocked by newly aligned borders dividing the entire North and South African regions. As transport gradually modernized, Tighmert changed in the 1980s to a settlement of different communities working in small-scale agriculture.
Garden Collectives realized in 2018 'In pursuit of the Oasis,' with artist Jerome Giller and community worker Ahmed Salem Dabah, as part of the conference Qanat: Performing change from the margins at LE18 art space in Marrakech. Presentations took place in 2019 at Bureau Postjesweg in Amsterdam Nieuw-West and in 2021 at Het Gemaal op Zuid in Rotterdam.