"At the dawn of the polders" theater performance by Eva Delville

What is the Netherlands?? What the fuck is Amsterdam?? Why the fuck is Amsterdam?? Why does it feel like a dystopic theme parc??Why do we live here?? How did it become this playmobil state??

This graduation work is a culminations of attempts at wanting to understand, and failing to understand, what the fuck this place is. This place I emigrated to when I decided to a research master in environmental philosophy, at the uni on the Zuidas and than quit to come to the school next door, also placed on the Zuidas and known as the Sandberg Institute. Being from Brussels, the capital of the neighbouring country named Belgium, I was shocked to find myself culture shocked when moving to the capital of the Dutch country. After being here for 3 years I can fairly assess that there is probably no country on earth that feels more artificial and thoughtfully designed than the Netherlands. The Dutch states cares about spatial ordering. The Dutch states loves to design and regulate. The Dutch states loves to design its country to best to cater to everyone's needs, creating flow feeling, a feeling that everything is alright. A feeling that everything is under control. Be good and just follow the dutch states guidelines and you will see, everything will be alright*.

* given that you are white, preferably Europeans or very stinking rich

With this same designer mindset the Dutch state is top best at invisibilizing all the ones the dutch states decided to leave out, neglects and forcefully represses by design so the dutch state can keep pretending they don’t exist, like refugees, trans people, the sea, homeless people, non white dutch citizens, wolfs, palestians and pro-palestinian activist. Well guess what. They do exist and will keep on existing.

Fuck you, Dutch state!

Fuck you and your fascist order!

This graduation work is a multi-media compilation of interrelated pieces that all attempt at grappling with violent history of the Dutch land and its role in the development of the colonial-capitalist order by following the wolfs that reentered the dutch’s borders after having being exterminated and purchased out of this land for nearly 200 years ago. In the footsteps of the wolfs, that is where this story unfolds… of living in between the blueprints of the state.