Grand Gallery

The first day I was being assigned to my quarters. For a while I had to stay in the cold and windy sleeping hall upstairs. Minus 10 degrees and no heating, like out in the open but with a roof. Nice and cosey, eh? Believe me, I was being grateful.

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Soon after arrival winter took it's rightful place in history and provided for a thin layer of ice in the canal surrounding the fortress.

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The living room at the fortress has always been an important meeting place for people with different backgrounds and nationalities. And it was most suitable for parties too!

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Room number 13. That's where I went into, of course. Well, I was happy of having a living room, an atelier and a stove.

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Yes it's a mess. It is in fact the very mess from a representative of the kabouters: the notorious Vurfkabootah.

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Just before the Gerries invaded Holland in May 1940, a couple of marines were being quartered in the fortress. Out of ennoyance they made beautiful wall-paintings that are still fresh and colourful. During those days some resistance was being put up by the Dutch, but you have to understand, the fortress was constructed in the middle of the 19th century, it had wide openings on top, one of two bombs from an aeroplane would suffice for it's demise. Though, some skirmishing has been reported but the fortress surrended after a couple of days into the war.

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The birthplace of the Verfkabouter.

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A beautiful day on the Fortress whilst the menace of being evicted led to eery paranoia within it's walls.
Our flags - the Tibetan-flag and the Black Pirateflag - are still proudly in top.
The boards are hanging in place everywhere. Same names, same font, same colors like in early 1940.

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Everywhere you looked in the fortress beautiful imagery, still-life's and sculptures where present. Any artist would be having a home-coming feeling and be comfortable with the serenity.

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Documenting one of the last parties at the Fortress.

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The occupying zero-cash-tenants of the fortress handed over the key symbolically to the mayor. Hence the flag of the municipality went in top. They finally got their fortress. It has costed them a lot of money and effort to conquer this superb strategic place. So, yes, they got what they wanted and in the end the tenants got nothing out of it with perspective like a Cultural Free Space. It's a bit sad though. A missed opportunity to beget a prosperous artist's village between Arnhem and Nijmegen (the KAN-area).

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