A brave new world

The Netherlands is ambiguous. One can describe the country most trenchant with the word doublethink; the word has its origin in the book 1984 by George Orwell. Doublethink is conceived as the acceptance of or mental capacity to accept contrary opinions or beliefs at the same time, (especially as a result of political indoctrination). The Netherlands represents these contrary opinions and mindsets. If we believe Hofstede’s definition that culture is the programming of the mind than this country is inhabited of creative Mac’s, bureaucratic cumbersome PC’s, as well as people that run last centuries MS DOS in their perception of the world.

Just as it is impossible to define the modern Dutch identity, it may be impossible to depict Dutch culture. Like a patchwork of cross-correlating cultures or a pizza cuatro estagiones the wrapping in categories seems virtually not possible.  My pictures shall depict this contrast. They are a blueprint of reality, random snapshots attempting to visualize the gap between high productive working cultures and slow but colorful influence winning traditions.

The Netherlands awaits us with architecture beyond imagination, playing wild games with forms and function, but is also hosts to old fashioned characters of a torn out black & white toned past, accidentally placed in a time and space that they don’t construct. Any attempt to reclaim the city is defeated; any attempt to become part of the system is postponed by the immigration department. When opening the eyes, this country often resembles a futuristic nightmare of loneliness, a boulevard of broken dreams; in contrast it is the dream of design, the heaven of creativity, a place of artistic freedom.  In the end there is the realization of the fact that one knew a little bit before coming here and now knows a lot less.

Niko Papageorgiou is a European Studies student and founder of the IDEAS -webmagazine