With this project I wanted to piece together a view of the
remaining plaster collection that used to be the significant
feature of the Royal Academy of Art The Hague up until the 1960s.
The collection was made up of over 6000 pieces from across Europe
and now only a small handful are known to remain in the academy
here today.
There is very little report about where the plaster
collection ended up, a few pieces were saved by the Allard Pierson
Museum in Amsterdam, and a few pieces remain until today in the
family homes of graduates and professors from the 1960s.
Articles
from the 60s-80s which mention this moment are very sparse, they
mention the removal and destruction of the plaster collection, but
the published information
doesn’t give any further view as to what happened in 1964.
Through ongoing conversations
I am trying to get a bigger picture of this moment
of destruction in the 60s and address it today. I want to tell the
story, the relational aspects that shape it along the way are
what interest me. In uncovering this story, I come to see it as at a
time when a lot of these stories could be lost forever if not
addressed at this moment when a great deal of the alumni from the
1960s have passed away in the past years. I would like to share this
with them and a wider audience.