12 october 2021, Flor Linckens
Ilona Langbroek: “A kind of nostalgia for a country that is so mysterious”
Until 23 October, you can see the solo exhibition 'Terra Incognita' ('Unknown Land') by Dutch photographer Ilona Langbroek in the Hazenstraat space of Bildhalle.
Ilona Langbroek, Longing for Insulinde #2, 2021, Bildhalle.
We still use overly euphemistic words like 'interference' when we talk about our colonial past in Indonesia. After the Second World War, a subject that we dó cover extensively in school and in the cinema, 300,000 people fled Indonesia and moved to the Netherlands. Many of them left during and immediately after the Indonesian National Revolution, which started with the capitulation of Japan in August 1945. The war ended in December 1949 with the independence of Indonesia. These refugees formed a diverse group and reached the Netherlands after long, grueling boat trips. They rarely received a warm welcome here. Some of them were even accommodated in barracks camps, which had been used to imprison Dutch Jews a few years earlier. Others were accommodated in contract boarding houses, where they often shared a small attic room with many people.
Ilona Langbroek. Shadow and Light, 2019, Bildhalle
One of these refugees was the grandmother of the Dutch photographer Ilona Langbroek. In a series of works that are currently on display in the gallery, Langbroek visualises the memories she has of her grandmother. For the project, the photographer did extensive research into her personal history. She interviewed the first generation to come to the Netherlands, she looked at old photo albums and read Indonesian literature in an effort to get closer to her family history. The result is a series of poetic, metaphorical and stylised photographs that seem to refer to classical painting techniques, such as chiaroscuro. Yet beneath the surface there is also a deep pain, illustrated by the title of the series with which she graduated cum laude in 2019: “Silent Loss”, a visualization of unresolved loss.
Langbroek: “I am the granddaughter of a Chinese-Indonesian woman and a Dutch KNIL soldier, who met in the Dutch East Indies before the war. During the Second World War, my grandmother worked as a nurse in a malaria clinic. My grandfather was taken prisoner of war and put to work on the Death Railway, also known as the Burma Railway. When the Burma railway was finished, he was transported to Japan by hell ship and stayed there in a labour camp until the capitulation of Japan in August 1945. After the war, my grandfather and grandmother found each other again. Following the Indonesian National Revolution, they were repatriated to the Netherlands. My grandfather was mentally heavily affected, particularly due to the displacement while my grandmother experienced the loss of her homeland.”
Ilona Langbroek, Terra Incognita #2, 2020, Bildhalle.
“In my work, I represent an emotion towards a time period, a country and a life that doesn’t exist anymore. Where many people in our country were snatched from. Among these people, the feeling of loss and sadness dominates. The story of my grandmother and grandfather has been the inspiration to record what many people in the Netherlands rarely consider, a population group that was forced to leave a lot behind, but has never been truly able to leave it behind in their hearts. This is about a population group who thought of that country as their homeland, they were Dutch-Indos. For many Indo-Dutch people, their past is mainly an oral history, hidden from the rest of the world. The first generation was a brave generation, scarred for life. Many of them were determined not to pass on their traumas, leaving a familiar silence in the community. The second and third generations gradually paid more attention to their own cultural identity, but loss also played a role there. A kind of nostalgia for a country that is so mysterious.”
