The Brussels-based artist Walter Swennen created the work:
Source: M HKA Ensembles
A painted text open to interpretation. Perhaps it can be read as: all the people who are here are allowed to be here? After all, who has any control over where their cradle stood? If it was even a cradle. Who doesn’t go in search of “that thing” within the life that was unexpectedly given to you? And if national borders make that impossible? Won’t you cross them anyway? It might be your only chance for survival. Your only chance to be yourself. Or to lead a more carefree, happier life. A universal longing. And borders are just something people made up. What if you—just as valuable as the people who came up with all of this—see everything you are and dream of, trapped and stifled within those national borders? With the impossibility of achieving that as your only fate? Wouldn’t you want to get out of there?
Everyone here came from somewhere. So let’s make things as wonderful as possible for those who are here. The more people who think this way, the better it becomes. Simple. There are people here of all colors and backgrounds. Those who, inside or outside the Dutch border, have endured unimaginable hardships, lost their way during their search, and are now floundering in despair or, conversely, feeling trapped. But there are also those who are doing just fine in Amsterdam—with a roof over their heads, a job that brings satisfaction and puts food on the table, and a great group of people around them. And then there are those who fall somewhere in between. On the surface, things seem to be going well, but they aren’t necessarily so. Or the other way around: life feels tough, but there are certainly opportunities and possibilities. They’re just a little hard to see...
We’re alive. We arrived here unexpectedly. And now we’re here. Shall we come together—all mixed up together—and make something of this, and reach out a helping hand to those who need it? Behind every refugee and migrant worker, every person sleeping rough, and every sad, desperate, displaced, or addicted person, there’s a story. Listen to it. It’s very easy, because all these people are in Amsterdam.