Pop-Up museum

The Pop-up Museum Identities is a temporary museum curated by seniors but open to all. Together with the SMAAK foundation, we organized multiple yearly editions of the pop-up museum; we contributed the 

  • Concept development
  • Logo design
  • Design corporate identity
  • Website design and development
  • Project management

Pop-Up Museum 2015

SMAAK’s collection was curated by nine guest curators, senior citizens (65+) from Amersfoort, and its surroundings. The assignment was to select ten works of art that relate to Amersfoort and are based on their taste, passion, or fascination. The curators’ stories are thoughtful, sometimes touching, and take the visitor with them. The nine art collections together form the Pop-up Museum SMAAK.
The Pop-up Museum SMAAK is not only a museum but also a laboratory in which taste research takes place. Taste has several meanings. You can have “good taste.” But what is that, and does “bad taste” also exist? Is taste age-related? Why is something “liked”? What does taste do to you? Can you taste taste? Do your senses change as you get older? Does your taste change as well? Is there an “art taste”? These questions form the starting points of our workshops, lectures, performances, and debates during the month the museum is open. There is no arguing about taste. Or is there? In the Pop-up Museum SMAAK 2015, there is every chance of that.

Pop-Up Museum 2016

This year had the same construction as 2015, with nine senior guest citizens who all chose ten works to display each. But this year, we added an artist in residence as well. Writer and illustrator Tais Teng had the honor. Together with the nine curators he made an illustrated picturebook.

Pop-up Museum 2017

2017 was in Amersfoort, the Mondriaan year to celebrate that the art movement ‘De Stijl’ existed for 100 years. So for the pop-up museum of 2017, we also took this as inspiration, so the theme for this year’s pop-up museum was being abstract.

Pop-up Museum 2018

Identities

Nursing home Vreugdehof in Amsterdam Buitenveldert has converted its former nurses’ flat into a temporary art exhibition, a Pop-up Museum. Ten guest curators, aged 65-plus, put together the exhibition. They followed a short training course with artist Emile van der Kruk to do so. The theme of the exhibition was ‘Identities’. The artworks dealed with the question: ‘who am I, who is the other and what do you identify with?

Besides the exhibition of artworks, various workshops and activities have been organised throughout the month. These included a workshop by the Van Gogh Museum, the Kröller Müller Museum and a hip-hop dance workshop. Artist Dorette Giling worked at the nursing home as Artist in Residence. Together with the visitors and residents, she created a sculpture around the theme ‘Identities’, which remained in the nursing home afterwards.