Experiences & Exhibiting

Everyone experiences a museum differently. I know it’s a cliché, but I don’t actually think it’s talked about enough. So let me explain. In my last post I talked about what it was like for me to visit the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam, and since writing that post, I have been back to her house for a second visit. I had a new experience as I reentered her house: it seemed like the pain and sadness of walking through her house the first time was gone the second time. And this bothered me.

In this post I want to focus on the value of the experience, and the importance of the audience. What follows is part of an assignment for my Identity in Popular Culture class that I’m taking while studying at the University of Amsterdam. It will primarily be informed by the writing of Henrietta Lidchi from her chapter titled "The Poetics and the Politics of Exhibiting Other Cultures" in the book Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices (2012), which is edited by British theorist Stuart Hall. All quotes that follow are taken from this chapter of this book.

Let’s start by defining museums as a place to “acquire, safeguard, conserve, and display objects, artifacts and works of arts of various kinds” (Hall 2012: 155). Museums are a place of learning and discovering more about the politics of that specific place: they aim to have the viewer leave with newfound knowledge from a perspective predetermined by the museum staff. In the case of the Anne Frank Museum, it seems like one of its goals -- as informed by my personal experience there -- is to introduce visitors to the idea of space. What would it have been like to be in a cramped, dark, and smelly house for a couple of years without ever being able to leave? It’s as much about the facts of Anne's life as it is about experiencing the physical space. But why? Why isn’t there more information about the Holocaust in general and the lives of other Jews and minorities persecuted during World War II?

In order to answer this question, I think we have to look to politics surrounding the audience. Specifically, what kind of visitors is the museum hoping to attract, and how does this shape the exhibition itself? It becomes the job of the museum to set up the show in such a way that it can appeal to the widest audience possible, and Lidchi points towards two ways of deconstructing the implications of museums while thinking about its audience: “first, that museums as educational institutions can serve to deepen knowledge but they are usually not directly confrontational: their representations must be held to be appropriate and to concord broadly with the view of social reality the visitor holds” (Hall 202). Except not. Hall continues that “the public attending museums expect their representations of the world to be confirmed, if a little extended, by the museum” (Hall 202). Keeping this in mind, the set-up of the Anne Frank House makes perfect sense: Anne Frank has become the quintessential icon of the Holocaust. It’s almost as if her experience symbolically becomes representative of all experiences of Jews in hiding during the Holocaust. Clearly this isn't the case, but the museum provides very few references of the lives of all the six plus million other people lost during the Holocaust.

(Side note: going to an “official” Holocaust museum -- like the one in Washington D.C. for example -- gives you a very different experience of life during the Holocaust. That museum doesn’t focus on one specific experience, but rather the experience of many. It broadens its information to include stories of those who died and those who survived, and often displays objects and any kind of memorabilia collected. Furthermore, at the museum in D. C., visitors can take a card with the name of a person on it and follow the experience of that person throughout the entire museum to see what their life was like and if they managed to survive. It isn’t just about one person, but rather the lives of the collective. This isn’t to say that it’s a better or worse way of explaining an atrocity, but rather that it’s a very different perspective and way of presenting knowledge.)

Lidchi continues with a second reason for anticipating the reaction of the audience: “second, as museums seek to widen their natural constituency to reach more varied audiences, so the visiting public will become increasingly more diverse and may have more varied, or even competing demands” (Hall 202). The museum sees upwards of one million visitors a year and has to find a way to accommodate these demands. One way the Anne Frank House deals with this is by predetermining the way in which you experience the space. When you arrive you get a pamphlet that has the only descriptive text for the entire museum. While there are short videos throughout, as well as quotes of Anne’s on the wall, there is no other text descriptions. Finally, all visitors have to experience the house in the same way though a one-way predetermined path. It isn’t really possible to go backwards and see another room again or to see the rooms “out of order.” It is thus a very conscious decision made by the museum staff to prioritize an organized experience over a more personal experience.

A predetermined experience gives the visitors the impression that there’s a certain agenda being pushed. It’s about becoming one of millions of people to have this particular experience. I almost wanted there to be more text along the way. It felt rather empty not having anything to guide my understanding of the space. Keeping in mind that it is impossible to create an identical representation of exactly what it would’ve been like for Anne Frank to live in hiding in the early 1940s, why not make it as informative as possible? It’s nice to see the originals posters of movie stars that she had on her wall, but where’s the description of the other materials in her room? Finally, why was it decided to keep the rooms empty instead of recreating the furniture and objects that would’ve been typically kept in those spaces when she lived there? 

As I went through her house a second time, I didn’t feel the same kind of guilt that I felt the first time. It seemed like the more I experienced the commercialism of her house, the more I become systematically desensitized to the trauma and pain of her suffering. Wait, what? Yeah, it felt like just another museum with more objects on display for me to view, analyze, and critique. It’s something I’m still trying to process and understand.

I often wonder what Anne Frank herself would think about her home being turned into a museum. On the one hand I’d like to think that she would be proud that her story has created visibility for the inhumane conditions of the Holocaust, but on the other hand I think she’d feel some sense of betrayal and exploitation. Why couldn’t this kind of support be found during the war, instead of afterwards? Furthermore, if it wasn’t for her father’s decision to read her diary, the museum wouldn’t exist in the first place. What if your experiences or my experiences of life were turned into a museum in a matter of years? How should our daily experiences be shaped by expectations of what might happen in the future?

Imagined Geography @ Anne Frank House

It's time for an update, but this isn't going to be like my usual posts. I'd like to take some time to reflect upon the nature of representation. Specifically, I want to talk about the role museums play in trying to recreate a historical experience by using the example of the Anne Frank House on Prinsengracht 267 in Amsterdam, Netherlands. I found my experience at the Anne Frank House to parallel my experience visiting Auschwitz a few summers ago in terms of the pain experienced and the questions left unanswered. What follows is part of a class assignment for a course I'm taking at the University of Amsterdam as well as something I've been wanting to write about for a while now.

Let's start from the beginning. I'm very close to Jewish culture: my maternal grandmother survived the Holocaust, but 70+ members of her family were murdered. I've heard stories of life in Poland during the Holocaust and the trauma experienced under the Nazi regime; I've heard all about Anne Frank and, like so many people around me, came to see her as a quintessential symbol of the Holocaust. I decided to read her diary before arriving in Amsterdam, not only in preparation for visiting her house, but also in order to have a general feel for the city. Reading her diary made me feel a little bit wiser and lucky to gain an insight into her thoughts and personality. I felt like I could identify with her intellectual articulations, and I'm certainly glad I read her diary. (Isn't there something a bit voyeuristic about reading somebody's diary that was meant to stay private? But I digress.) It was a tense and stressful read, yet I thought I was prepared to visit her house. I wasn't. I wasn't prepared for the commercialism, the hype, or the pain that was to accompany the trip.

I left her house with more questions than answers: why is her story being glorified? Why are people romanticizing her life and her national symbolism, and what exactly was I expecting to encounter? Was it a room full of people, furniture, and objects just like when she lived there? No, that wouldn't make sense. I hadn't even thought about what I was going to see, just where I would be walking. I knew I would be able to walk up the same staircase that she would have walked on, I would have seen the same plumbing that she used, and I would have walked past the infamous bookcase/door that saved her life countless times when intruders entered her home. However, the context in which I see her house isn't the same as that in which she saw it. She wasn't able to think about how little light was able to enter into the room because she didn't have the freedom to open the windows; she wasn't able to think about how tiny and restrictive her room was because she had no other choice. So I started thinking. What kind of space does this museum create and what kind of meaning can we take away from it? What is the role of a museum? Can a museum charge a fee for visitors to visit a place of pain and suffering? It's become a landmark known all over the world, but at the end of the day, it's still impossible to recreate the exact experience and life of Anne Frank when she was hiding there.

Museums are a kind of 'imagined geography' or "representations of place, space, and landscape that structure people's understandings of the world, and in turn help shape their actions" according to Felix Driver. In this sense, it is the job of the museum to represent an idea in a such a way that establishes a specific response from the visitor. Take for example the text used in the Anne Frank House. There isn't much commentary from the curators except for a pamphlet describing the one-way route through the house that's given out at the ticket counter. Everything else is either a label describing a picture or object, or it's a quote of Anne's that's on the wall. This format allows visitors to walk through the space while thinking about a thought of hers, but of course this already is a different way of experiencing her house than when she lived there. A visitor sees the space she lived in, but cannot see her experiences in that space. A few of her film posters have survived, but they're protected behind a glass shield. It's almost as if her life has been transformed into a spectacle to watch from a distance instead of a life to be remembered and cherished.

Since there's no way to actually recreate the same experience that Anne Frank had herself when she was in hiding, it is up to the visitor to imagine what it would've been like to live in hiding; the museum constructs a space for the visitor to create, critique, and capture a glimpse of her life during the war. It is only an imagined experience and imagined understanding of trauma. Thus, the museum creates a kind of illusion for establishing an authentic experience. I'm not trying to say that museums shouldn't exist, merely that we should be aware of our experience and be comfortable questioning the means by which they exist in the first place.

While personal experiences are important, I think it's also worthwhile to take a look at the "industry" behind the Anne Frank House, including tourism and the museum's international reputation. According to the Anne Frank House website, the museum sees around one million visitors a year. Similarly, on the iamsterdam tourism website, the city claims that "no visit is complete without seeing the Rijksmuseum, Van Gogh Museum or the Anne Frank House." The city of Amsterdam has realized that the Anne Frank House is one of the biggest attractions within the city and uses it as a way to draw in more visitors. In other words, the Anne Frank House has become a kind of marketing tool in which to help sell the city. It's taken on a form of place-selling, which -- according to a lecture given by Ward Rennen -- can be defined as "a strategy to safe-guard and increase the socio-economic vitality of a place by (pro)actively attracting and retaining important target groups." Here, the target groups are tourists/visitors, yet in order to attract this group of people, the museum has to capitalize on the trauma of Anne's story. At the end of the day, Anne's story is still one of pain and tragedy and there's something a bit uncomfortable and troubling about the commercialization of her legacy.

I anticipated the experience to be deeply moving, and indeed, I was profoundly affected by the exhibition. It's one thing to read about her life, but it's another thing to literally set foot on the floor she walked on; it's one thing to talk about an experience, but it's another thing to try and recreate it. You can see the effect of the museum by the wear and dents on the stairs that millions of visitors have walked on. Her story touches the lives of millions of people and seems to offer a sense of truth to some people. Perhaps her story offers redemption for people who want to believe that there's something hopeful and positive to come out of the Holocaust.

I'm glad I had a chance to pay tribute to Anne Frank, but why do I still feel so ... guilty?

Curry + Texel, NL

I think my relationship to food has already changed a bit since I've been here, and it's mostly due to my own cooking. I'm starting to appreciate the little things a lot more. For example, I never realized how easy and simple it is to make french onion dip: mayonnaise & sour cream & spices & caramelized onions. It was delicious, and I think I'll have to make some again. Or take for instance the dinner party I was at yesterday: my friend Christine made her own pasta noodles & dumplings! Pad Thai from scratch! It just takes a little bit of patience and time. 

For the sake of space and time, I think I will create a facebook (or flickr?) album to post my pictures. I don't think posting all 70+ from the past couple of weeks here would be wise. I'll keep you posted. 

Here we go: 

I've recently discovered guacamole. I usually don't like avocados, but this was amazing. It also had salsa and other spices. Yummy! 

Here's the french onion dip I was talking about + caramelized onions.

Eggs + cream cheese + paprika/cumin has become a new favorite of mine.

When in doubt, you can always make eggs + potatoes.

Sushi! I don't even remember what everything is, but it's a new addiction/obsession.

My attempt at fried rice. It ended up too mushy. I'll have to try again.

Bread w/sun-dried tomato tapenade + mint tea for just 5Euros. My favorite combination at my favorite café that's just around the corner from my dorm room.

The vegetable stir-fry: garlic, onion, green beans, red pepper,  ginger, eggplant,  mushrooms & chicken.

Curry! Veggies + Korma curry sauce.

Chicken Marsala curry w/rice.

IES field trip to Texel, NL.

Water @ Texel

Tiny Town @ Texel

Shrimp Boat!

Bring home the food.

LOOK AT IT ALL. (Yes, the blue thing is a jelly fish and no we didn't eat it.)

Seals out on the water.

Look at all the fresh shrimp we got to try. It wasn't fishy and tasted a bit salty. BUT SO FRESH.

Arf Arf -- Ecomare Seal Rescue Center -- Texel, NL

Olive Tapenade + Bread at a café.

I went to see a film in a bare-bones warehouse that used to be a squat house.  They played The Strawberry Statement from 1970 dealing with political uprisings on a college campus. Interesting.

Do you see 'em chocolate sprinkles? It's a common Dutch thing. You eat them on everything and they're basically just pure chocolate. Magical. (I'll have to do a separate post just on traditional Dutch foods.)

My hamburger w/fried onions and all it's glorious deliciousness. No really, it's been one of my favorite meals I've had so far here in Amsterdam.

Alone vs Lonely

I think it's time for another philosophical post. Today's topic is about independence, and the difference between being alone and being lonely. It's something that I finally understood last year at school, but has its own applications here in Amsterdam.

It seems to be "unacceptable" (whatever that means) to go out on your own. I'm not entirely sure why, but I think the implication is that you don't have any friends. And then you're a loser. And nobody will be friends with a loser. Except that's not it at all. I go out on my own all the time. (Unless I'm a loser and nobody has told me yet, in which case, please inform me!)

I go out to explore, to sight-see, to eat, to meet people, and quite frankly, just to be the only one making the decisions. Sure I love being with my friends, but it's a nice change to only have to respond to myself. I've gone to museums to see my favorite paintings alone; I've gone to a café to do homework and get a snack alone; and I've gone to the grocery store to plan my evening meals alone. It's just that. I am by myself and thus I am alone. But I am not lonely. I am independent.

Of course, there's nothing wrong with being lonely, it just requires different steps to be taken. For example, if I felt like I was lonely when going to a museum, I could ask a friend to tag along. (Guess what? I have because I like company, too!) If I was lonely when eating, I could suggest to some friends that we go out for dinner. (I've done that too--good conversations are hard to come-by these days.) It isn't that I don't know how, it's just that sometimes I just want to be by myself. I want to be alone.

I don't really care what other people think, because really, why does it matter? I'm enjoying what I'm doing and I'm comfortable. I don't feel forced to be by myself and I don't feel like it's ostracizing me from my friends. I just like it. Do you?

I encourage you, dear reader, to try it too. Try exploring the city/town/area you live in on your own or going to a new café by yourself. Try biking for the sake of seeing the terrain, or walking to meet a friend somewhere. It's rewarding but it takes patience. It takes patience to be comfortable getting lost and knowing that you'll be able to find your way back. It takes patience to realize that you're going to be okay on your own. It takes patience to be able to fully trust yourself. But you'll get there.

Have any fun adventures? Leave a message in the comments below!

Food Update.

I've already had a few requests for some pictures of the city itself in addition to the delicious food so look for those in an upcoming post. Right now I need to upload some food pictures--I've gotten a bit behind!

One of the most picturesque double rainbows I have ever seen. It was right outside our window, too!

Recent shopping trip. Take note of the Marzipan (almond paste) in particular and the amount of veggies in general.

One night I sautéed green beans with onions, garlic, and mushrooms.  I didn't even set the smoke alarm off! It was good.

I went to Café de Jaren to study on my own and ordered a mango smoothie with lime-coconut-chicken soup. Mmm. 

I call it an "Amsterdam Sandwich" because it's a great to-go lunch. It consists of a roll--half with berry jam half with tomato spread--salami and cheese. I assure you it's delicious.

These peper flavored crackers are way too addictive. 

Another night I sautéed the rest of my mushrooms with red peppers and some garlic. YUM.

Right around Vondelpark there was a great sushi restaurant I went to with my friends Annelise and Javon. On the left is tuna w/cream cheese and on the right are basic cucumber rolls. (Note: sesame seeds in sushi = THE BEST.)

So one night I fried some potatoes...

Penne pasta w/ salad!

I don't like coffee, but I wanted a cappuccino. Go figure. (I think I just wanted to get that tiny little cookie because the cookie alone was worth the price of the drink.)

Only 20 Euros worth of groceries. Here we have the addition of fruit like raspberries and strawberries. 

Stroopwaffles! A Dutch delicacy. I don't even know how to explain them. They're buttery and heavenly goodness.

Sex & Drugs & Culture

Today's the first day that I actually miss Detroit. I never thought I'd say that, but I really do miss the diversity that I grew up with at home. Amsterdam is well full of ... well, White Europeans. Am I surprised? Not really, but any kind of diversity beyond that is quite absent and it bothers me. I'm now part of the majority (due to my heritage) with the exception of baring an American Accent (and being Jewish).

You'd think that for all the radical policies that Amsterdam is known for--specifically its open and relaxed approach to drugs & sexuality & gay culture-- that it would be a very liberated and free city. But it's not. At least not in the way that I was expecting. Take the gay community, for example. Amsterdam was one of the first places to legalize gay marriage, and thus I was expecting a very much visible gay community. Nope, not here. Sure there are rainbow flags, bookstores, and sex shops that caters towards that specifically community, but you don't see people walking down the streets holding hands or other public acknowledgments. It might be that people feel like they're "accepted" and don't need to show it, but I don't think that's quite right. I think they're merely "tolerated" and this lose any sense of agency or voice when they try and be heard. Lets face it: nobody wants to be tolerated; we all want to be accepted for who we are and how we identify. It's become an industry and commercialized. Just like the drug industry.

As a point of clarification: marijuana isn't legal here. It's just condoned instead of criminalized. If you want to use soft drugs (hard drugs are illegal) you've got safe access to them. But it's really about making money. Locals don't really frequent coffee-shops here and it's mostly international visitors that do. If you haven't heard, there's a new law that's taking effect on January 1, 2013 that will only allow residents of the Netherlands to legally use weed. I can't see how this is helpful: it's only going to create a black market for drugs--people will start selling them on the streets or underground--making access unreliable and unsafe. There are other ways for Amsterdam to clean up its image if that's what it's going for here.

Like regulation. Sex workers are part of a union here and they have rights. (News flash: there are Red Light districts in the USA. Not only that but most of them aren't regulated.) But again, the Red Light District is a huge tourist draw. There's a separate area that locals tend to go instead. It's highly commercialized and profitable. If only we could somehow de-stigmatize female sexuality around the world then prostitution and other kinds of sex work wouldn't be so taboo.

Don't get me wrong, Amsterdam is still a fantastic city. It has a lot of deep and rich culture that I love and wouldn't be able to find anywhere else. It has great museums, parks, and public transportation to just begin the list. But the longer I live here, the more I understand how easy it is to romanticize a city like Amsterdam. To paraphrase John Green: a lot of people think of Amsterdam as a city of sin. It's actually a city of freedom, but in freedom a lot of people find sin.

Classes & Groceries

Phew. First week of classes are done! I've finally settled on the two classes that I want to take this semester: Identities in Popular Culture & Media Worlds. The former is all about understanding representation and identity within everyday interactions and ideas while the latter is about the kinds of places and spaces that create meaning. I'm not entirely certain about it yet myself, but seeing as I've only had one class, I think there's plenty of time to learn. I'll let you know when I find out more information.

A lot of my friends are taking a Dutch Language class, but I opted out of it. I would love to be fluent in another language (I'm not sure my current Spanish skills qualify as fluent), but I think for now I'm just going to stick to my phrase book. I can manage simple words and phrases for the time being to get me by, I hope.

In my spare time (I have Monday/Wednesday/Thursday and the weekends off!) I've been going to some museums. Most recently I went to the EYE Film Institute to see the Stanley Kubrick exhibition the day it was closing. I now feel much more acquainted with his films (A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, Eyes Wide Shut, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Spartacus, Lolita, Dr. Strangelove) and want to watch off the them right now. I haven't made it to a movie theater yet, but that's definitely on my list. Perhaps that'll be a weekend adventure. 

I still find myself in awkward situations every time I go to the grocery store. For starters, you have to weight and label your own produce. Say for example you buy a clove of garlic (knoflook in Dutch!). You might put it in a bag, but you next bring it over to the scale. You find the picture/name of your food and either manually type in the price or just click the button to print out a sticker. In the long run it makes check-out a lot faster--the cashiers just have to scan it instead of remembering 27739472 numbers for produce--but forgetting to do it makes you stand out as a non-local. 1) you have to know the name of your food in Dutch and 2) you have to remember to do it. In contrast, places like Trader Joe's in the US do all the weighing at the counter, and places like Whole Foods have you write down a code that'll translate into a price at the register. Different customs, different systems.

But it isn't just produce that gets me into trouble, it's also everything else! One moment I might be looking at four different labels for butter, or I might be looking at fabric softeners instead of laundry detergents! While it might be frustrating at first, I don't really mind that much. I just need to have a little bit of extra time and patience and I can usually figure out what I'm looking at. Usually. I'm just going to casually forget to mention how quickly the bread (and other fresh items like cheese and meats) goes moldy and thus how frequently it is necessary to go grocery shopping.

In other news, hazelnut and chocolate go very well together. It's the Dutch version of Nutella (hazelnootpasta) and it's delicious. I've also bought some hazelnut chocolate bars, and my roommate has some hazelnut chocolate puff cereal. 

Now on to the pictures!

Salad: the important part here is that I made the salad dressing first at the bottom of the bowl using olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper.

Trip to store: Sunrise orange & rum drink (yum!), a strawberry yogurt drink I haven' t tried yet, and the chocolate and hazelnut bar I mentioned above.

@ Van Gogh Museum

@ Football Game!

Marching Band @ Football Game!

The Netherlands (in orange) won 2-0 against Turkey!

The beautiful EYE Film Institute building.

A Dutch tradition: bitterballen on bread...

...properly eaten by smashing them on buttered bread and adding mustard!

Sesame Chicken in Chinatown! It was so delicate, I'd love to go again.

The hazelnut chocolate spread, some random (hit & miss) alcohol mixed drinks, a cork screw, and my breakfast yogurts.

One day for lunch I went with my friend Grace to this little snack bar. I got a cheeseburger with egg and some kind of tropical smoothie; Grace had a "Hawaiburger" and Sprite. Both were lovely albeit messy.

Last night Gabby made this delicious curry with sweat potatoes, spinach, tofu and coconut milk. I had made rice earlier (for the first time ever!) and we combined them together for a delicious dinner.

It's been a great couple of weeks so far and we're just getting started! I'm off to class now! Enjoy.