Kelly, Louis-Thomas (2022) Planning to Remember: Determining contested public memory at Amsterdam’s Indië-Nederland Monument and reflecting on counter-memorial spatial intervention. Master thesis.
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Abstract
In 1935 the van Heutsz Monument, Amsterdam was unveiled; in the sixties it was first bombed; in the eighties there was a second bombing by anti-colonial activists; in the early two thousands the monument was renamed, re-purposed, and renovated; and then, most recently in 2021, it was the venue for an inclusive ceremony in remembrance of the difficult past tying Netherlands to Indonesia. The Indië-Nederland Monument was once, and still is, a contested site of Dutch public memory that falls within the reach of spatial planning and municipal policy-making. Following an agonistic framework for counter-commemorative spatial planning and design, this research is premised on dissonant heritage, its appearance in the built environment, and the dialogical interventions available for authors of public memory to reshape the way we see memory commemorated in the city. First analyzing the site through a semiotics focused on displays of significance, authorship, and interpretation, this planner’s semiotics determines the intentions behind the site, and looks into its reception amongst audiences. Then, constricted in application due to Covid-19 conditions in the winter of 2022, this research makes recommendation for, but also provides a visual prompt for, an agonistic and participatory art-based approach to dealing with the colonially significant and contentious Indië-Nederland Monument in function with Indo-Dutch mnemonic communities. Reflecting on the counter-commemorative vigilance of such an agonistic approach to planning critical remembrance reveals that an art-based co-authorship holds the potential to reframe the way people think and interact with divisive monuments and the meanings they embody.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Master) |
|---|---|
| Degree programme: | Society, Sustainability and Planning (MSc Socio-spatial Planning) |
| Supervisor: | Hoven, B. van and Vaart, G. van der |
| Date Deposited: | 26 Jul 2022 08:55 |
| Last Modified: | 26 Jul 2022 08:55 |
| URI: | https://frw.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/3923 |
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