"I write the texts for Princessehof and Fries Museum that people can read when they visit the exhibition. I also keep an eye on the overarching story behind exhibitions. Of course, I do not do this on my own, but in consultation with the curator and everyone else who is involved. Naturally, Eline van den Berg is the curator of our major exhibition on Korea. We have clearly defined roles: the curator is responsible for the content and I for the form. We build up the exhibition together by writing texts for each room and sometimes we also highlight objects with a separate text."
Sounding board group
"We want to welcome people who have a connection with Korea to the exhibition. That's why we set up a sounding board group. This group consists of people who were nearly all born in Korea and now live in the Netherlands. They are fully up-to-date on what is going on in Korean society today. Having them review the texts has been a great help. The focus group made me think more critically about how I could appeal to the target group, and kept me on my toes while writing the texts. It’s been a really fruitful collaboration. We would like to make audio stories in which members of the focus group tell their stories about objects that have a special meaning for them. In this way, we can make the exhibition very authentic. But it is also important to keep all our visitors engaged with the exhibition. My motto when writing texts is “leave no one behind”. You always focus on the group that comparatively knows the least. So you have to incorporate all the various backgrounds to create a complete story with a head and a tail."
Young and old
"We’ve created a special layer for families for this exhibition. The idea is that children explore the exhibition with their parents/grandparents and get the same message in an equal way. It is important that they can talk about the exhibition with each other. For us, it’s essential that both young and old have a good time in the museum. The basis for the story of the exhibition is that Korea is a hidden treasure. Westerners actually know a very little about its rich cultural history. We want to tell the story of Korea through ceramics. That's the big idea and everything has to follow on from it. Ceramics is a very forgiving material that can survive the centuries, which means it is perfect for illustrating history. The design of the exhibition will be modern and streamlined, with Korean elements. I hope that the exhibition will become a meeting place between people who have lived in Korea, all the Princessehof’s visitors and the works of art. I would love it if visitors to the exhibition really get to experience Korea in all its richness."
