By Rowan Stol, Annemarie de Wildt, Margriet Schavemaker and Pepijn Reeser

In The Future of the Dutch Colonial Past, Amsterdam University Press, 2024.

Editors: Emma van Bijnen, Pepijn Brandon, Karwan Fatah-Black, Imara Limon, Wayne Modest, Margriet Schavemaker.

The book is available in print and open access online via the website of the Amsterdam Museum

For the collection supplement for Metropolis M Issue 6, 2023, I wrote an essay about on collaborative projects of museums with inhabitants in their surrounding areas, and what this might mean for their collection policies.

Order a copy of the magazine here.

The essay can now also be read on the website of Metropolis M.

For Metropolis M, I reviewed the exhibition Tanah Merdeka by Taring Padi at Framer Framed. On behalf of Taring Padi, I spoke with Alexander Supartono about the exhibition and themes such as (non-)hierarchy, humor and collectivity.

Read it here.

For Metropolis M, I reviewed the 2023 graduation show of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie. The article features works by Iiris Riihimäki, Sangiorgio Dallajee Blonk, Adele Jossè, Darya Akkerman, Minhu Jun, Hippolyte Godest and Fanja Bouts.

Read it here.

Authors: Margriet Schavemaker, Esmee Schoutens & Rowan Stol
Journal of Curatorial Studies, Vol. 11, Iss. 1
April 2022

Abstract: Shortly after the first lockdown in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, the Amsterdam Museum launched the online exhibition Corona in the City. The multimedia platform, which invites inhabitants of the city of Amsterdam to contribute their own stories, aims to collect the pandemic as it is experienced. The authors look back on the trajectory of the platform during its first year and observe how, through a combination of curating and ‘uncurating’ the content, the museum demonstrates a broader change in its policy towards collecting and storytelling. We reflect on ways in which the platform has and will change according to how the pandemic unfolds, and propose that it can serve as a pilot for more democratic, co-created institutions in the future.

Towards the Multivocal Pluriverse
The Amsterdam Museum's Golden Coach study room as an experimental site of the multivocal, decolonial museum (2021)

Master thesis, Cultural Analysis
University of Amsterdam
Supervised by Dr. David Duindam and Dr. Noa Roei

In preparation for their Golden Coach exhibition, The Amsterdam Museum opened a study room in an attempt to be transparent about the processes leading up to the exhibition, and to invite visitors to share their ideas on the coach, which has been the object of a nationwide debate. The study room is part of the museum's expressed ambition to be multivocal. Through a close reading of the study room, this thesis explores in what ways the Amsterdam Museum understands and facilitates multivocality, and, in this way, (re)shapes its relation to its visitors. Decolonial theory informs a critical stance towards the idea of progress, which is implied within museum policies that call for change such as multivocality. In an attempt to envision a multivocal museum that answers to a variety of perspectives, this thesis explores curatorial methodologies through which the museum could work towards becoming a multivocal pluriverse.

Diversity put into perspective
Undefined whiteness and the diverse Other within diversity discourse of Dutch museums (2019)

Master thesis, Sociology
University of Amsterdam
Supervised by Marci Cottingham and Prof. Dr. Jan Willem Duyvendak

For the first year of the project, I was an impact researcher for the project Gezichten van Noord-Holland. The project is a collaboration between the Amsterdam Museum and the Frans Hals Museum.

Click here for the project’s website.

(Preliminary) results of different types of research done in the context of the exhibition De Gouden Koets at the Amsterdam Museum, including the data analysis of visitor responses I worked on with Dr. Emma van Bijnen.

Click here for the full report.

Op 12 februari 2021 organiseerde het Amsterdam Museum vanuit Felix Meritis een symposium naar aanleiding van de tentoonstelling Refresh Amsterdam. Door middel van panelgesprekken, een column en een performance onderzocht het museum in dit symposium wat de staat is van het kunstklimaat in de stad. Het tweede panel draaide om de verschillende beschrijvende en definiërende labels die voor en door makers worden gebruikt. Aan het woord zijn Bas Kosters (kunstenaar, modeontwerper), Sjoejeng Tsao (illustrator, activist), Christian Guerematchi (danser, choreograaf) en Clayde Menso (directeur Amerpodia). Het Amsterdam Museum vroeg Rowan Stol een essay te schrijven naar aanleiding van de discussie.

Lees hier het essay.

Op 12 februari 2021 organiseerde het Amsterdam Museum vanuit Felix Meritis een symposium naar aanleiding van de tentoonstelling Refresh Amsterdam. Door middel van panelgesprekken, een column en een performance onderzocht het museum in dit symposium wat de staat is van het kunstklimaat in de stad. Het eerste panel draaide om de relatie tussen makers en woon- en werkruimtes. Aan tafel zitten AiRich (beeldend kunstenaar en bewoners Heesterveld Creative Community), Tim Vermeulen (directeur NDSM-werf), Nadia Benchagra (coördinator W139, bestuurslid De Zaak Nu), Massih Hutak (schrijver, muzikant, lid van collectief Verdedig Noord) en Terra Dakota Stein (jurist, lid van collectief Verdedig Noord). Het Amsterdam Museum vroeg Rowan Stol een essay te schrijven naar aanleiding van de discussie aan tafel.

Lees hier het essay.

Click here to be redirected to the website of LA RIOT, where you can find my reviews of films such as The Lighthouse, The Painted Bird and White Cube.

Authors: Daniel Morawitz and Rowan Stol

Each year, EU countries are represented in Venice by a jury of young women and men from all over Europe under the 27 Times Cinema initiative. The 27 jurors are selected among the audience of the Europa Cinemas network. One of their tasks is to award a prize to the best film of the Giornate degli Autori selection. The 27 spoke with the four Europa Cinemas Label jury members Octavio Alzola (Cines Renoir), Silke Bomberna (Sphinx Cinema), Gabriele Ciglia (Cinema Nuovo) and Mirona Radu (Cinema Muzeul Taranului) about their experience as exhibitors and their collaborative work as jurors during the seventeenth edition of the Europa Cinemas Label at Giornate degli Autori.

Click here to read the full interview.