Spring 2014 I had an exhibition at the CBK Zuidoost in Amsterdam. There I showed photographs from my project Africa Junctions. During the construction I went for lunch with my intern in the shopping area Amsterdamse Poort. Looking for a Surinamese sandwich store, I was struck again by the hustle and bustle, the different smells and the many cultures. The Bijlmer seems to be a city in itself, isolated from Amsterdam, but it is also Amsterdam. A few years before, after Africa Junctions, I had planned to take a new look at Amsterdam and possibly the Bijlmer. Because of my many trips to cities in Africa, I was sometimes bored by the monoculture in my neighborhood. During a residency in Johannesburg, it occurred to me that we too are creating cities where the social (and therefore often cultural) diversity is increasingly categorized by neighborhood. Time, after a lengthy project in Africa, to turn my gaze to the Bijlmer.
So at the end of last year I asked Renske de Jong, curator of CBK Zuidoost, if I could perhaps stay in the BijlmAir residency for a week or a few days, if it would be unused for a while between guests. For my work as a photographer who investigates urban developments on the basis of public space, a stay in a place of my own is invaluable. When I 'live' somewhere, I make that place my own in a completely different way. My view changes by being a resident. Abroad, I try to avoid hotels for this reason. Art residencies give me a better entrance to a city. Hotels are a barrier.
A week before Christmas I was suddenly in the apparte-ment of BijlmAir that CBK Zuidoost and Stichting Flat run together in the Florijn apartment. In that first week I walked around a lot without a camera. To be honest, the weather wasn't up to it either. Despite the gray skies and drizzle, the Bijlmer made me enthusiastic. That surprised me. How could this neighborhood, with this weather, look so positive to me? The Bijlmer is one very large new housing estate. Newly built neighborhoods strike me as rather boring, but here I saw everything happening in the public space, even now, a week before Christmas.
The Bijlmer
In its short existence, the Bijlmer already has quite a history behind it. The first flats were completed in 1966. The residents came from the inner city and chose the outlined dream of a modern city. This modernist ideal came from the principles of functional building, in which the various functions such as, living, business, shopping, leisure and traffic are arranged separately from each other. The idea was that you arrive on large roads that lead you to large parking garages from which you walk covered to the apartment gallery. From the apartment you can get to the lower 'ground level', where you walk through an urban park and cycle on an extensive network of cycle paths. The large scale and the phased construction (the first residents of the Bijlmer had to wait years for good facilities and the promised
metro connection to the inner city) did the Bijlmer no favors. Although I now know plenty of people who were lyrical about the Bijlmer from the start. After a few years, however, the first residents moved back to the city, or to Almere after all, and vacancy became a major problem in the Bijlmer.
Around the time of Suriname's independence in 1975, people seemed to want to make a virtue of necessity by offering the new migrants a place in the Bijlmer. The result was a district with high unemployment. Large families came to live in flats, while they had no cultural background in urban living. In the following 1980s and 1990s, the Bijlmer was a no-go area for many. The Bijlmer is literally outside of Amsterdam (Diemen is still in between), so it easily fell out of the city government's sight. An initially proud plan became a fiasco. They did not know what to do. Instead of a modern middle-class neighborhood, a migrant neighborhood arose that was both culturally and location isolated from the city, but at the same time administratively part of it. This changed after the Bijlmer disaster in 1992. The Bijlmer has undergone a great deal of renovation in recent decades. The problems have not disappeared, but they are more under control.
I feel safe on the streets - even at night - and by the looks of it, so do most of the women. During the day, the Bijlmer is very lively. In the, in my view, ugly built shopping center Arena Poort people stop each other for a chat, the atmosphere is very friendly, but sometimes a bit fucked up among the dealers and loitering youth. Yet they no longer seem to dominate the atmosphere. However, the name of the Bijlmer has not yet been cleared. Many people still see it as dangerous, or have nothing to do with the cultural identity of the Bijlmer. The neighborhood still lacks places to go, such as cafes and restaurants. Low income groups and the bottom of the middle class still dominate the population which means that there is still a lack of a market for cafes and terraces. An event city has been erected around the Arena, which also attracts people from the inner city.
Creative breeding ground Heesterveld
By now it is summer and I am in Heesterveld, a creative incubator in the H neighborhood. The H neighbourhood is still seen as a difficult area. The renewal of the Bijlmer came to a standstill here after 2008: Heesterveld is an apartment building that was supposed to be demolished, but due to the financial crisis there was no funding for new construction. For owner Ymere, an incubator seemed the solution. This cultural destination was expected to give the neighborhood a positive input. The Heesterveld incubator houses students and others.
of the Rietveld Academy, but in the meantime many non-artists have also moved in; people who were looking for a cheap place to live because they did not want to leave the Bijlmer. This means that the incubator is not yet working as hoped. In time, more living/working studios will be transformed into studios without a residential function. The apartment I'm in is called H-Lab and from next year will be, in addition to presentation space, the permanent artist residency of CBK Zuidoost.
I walk around the neighborhood a lot. Try to do that at different times. This morning I went out extra early to catch the morning rush hour. In Southeast there are also many offices around the Arena. The parallel worlds in the Bijlmer fascinate me. It's clear that residents and businessmen live alongside each other in the public space here. The ING building (by Alberts and Van Huut), which was designed based on anthroposophical ideas, is an icon of the Amsterdamse poort shopping center and extends over half of the shopping center, which runs from Anton de Komplein to Arena Poort. The entrance to the ING building is at Bijlmerplein. Around lunchtime, it's full of business people. One square further on, towards the market on Anton de Komplein, is full of residents.
After a long trip through the Bijlmer, I am walking towards Heesterveld. I have just filmed a group of people barbecuing in Nelson Mandela Park (formerly Bijlmer Park) with my new video camera. I have to get into it, because filming is new to me and working in your own city gives a different dynamic than working abroad. I can't deny that a different culture and language creates a certain distance that is also quite comfortable. Moreover, in Africa I often worked with an assistant, who mostly did the talking for me, because I don't speak the local African languages. In the Bijlmer I am on my own and speak the language, at least the Dutch one. I don't master Papiamento, Sranantongo or the language of the streets.
Contrary to what people often think, I am shy in the first contact. I walk around and look for the
barbecuing groups and in Nelson Mandela Park I am observing a group from a distance. Diagonally behind me a boy passes in the direction of this group, he shrugs his shoulders and asks, "What do you want? Are you a mute?" "No, I'm a photographer, an artist and I think it's so cool that everyone here is barbecuing outside in the street." He invites me in and introduces me to the group. A man with on his t-shirt Dushi Curaçao is grilling very experienced chicken legs and chops. I film and get a cutlet. Later I walk on and take some more evening shots in and around the park. On the way to Heesterveld I focus on a number of flats. When I'm done and almost at Heesterveld, I see that it is already ten thirty and that most kitchens are now closed. Also Lomnavi Kenkey House, in the neighborhood is closed. I walk on and under the parking lot next to Heesterveld, one more door is open. Above the door it says 'Obalade Suya - african cuisine and barbeque'. I walk in and see that it is more than a takeaway. There are about six tables, and on the wall is an advertisement for Star beer with the price in Naira (Nigerian currency). I immediately feel like I'm in Lagos and look at a familiar menu. Moments later, I'm standing outside, beaming, with a bag of fish with plantain & peppersauce (see photo).
The owner comes after me because I had not waited for my change. Night falls over African Amsterdam...
After 5 weeks of Bijlmer, my stay here is coming to an end. Too soon. In the past few weeks I have gotten to know a new city. A new urbanity that, given my experiences in Africa, I will probably be able to work on again for several years.
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