Transparency of History
The teapot is made of epoxy resin and is an exact copy of my great
grandmother, Zwaantje, her teapot. She and my other great-grandmother:
Almost all of the documents about the orphanage have disappeared (most of
them were destroyed in a fire). One of the only things I could find were a
handful of pictures and a letter written by the matron of the orphanage
shortly after World War Two. In this, she writes to her aunt, that one of her
own children got sick. One of the orphans, she wrote, got ill and couldn’t get
examined by a doctor (there were no resources reserved for the orphans).
After she died they figured out that is was Tuberculosis that killed her.
Around that time a quarter of the children in the Orphanage were already
contaminated.
I wanted to make something in honor of my own great-grandmothers and
for the orphans that were the victims of these tragic events in The
Netherlands during the war. Bringing to light that what has been hiding in
the shadows for too long. Making a work based upon research that played
with light, storytelling, and transparency

