Captured
In Captured, makers Arnoud Holleman and Batya Wolff show the complicated handling of photography in Batya's family. Her father Max Wolff (b. 1926) bought a camera after the war. Photography became his coping mechanism for dealing with war trauma, but while photographing, the war also remained ever-present in the home. That put a damper on the life of his daughter, who grew up in front of his lens. Can she free herself from a war that ended long before she was born?
Twice Upon A Time
Twice Upon A Time was part of the installation The Kiss of Life, on view at the Jewish Cultural Quarter in Amsterdam in 2022. Filmmakers Arnoud Holleman and Batya Wolff sought new connections in the immense visual archive in Batya's family. How are photography and film connected to processing the Shoah? What were the motives for photography and filming before the war? And with what after? In Twice Upon a Time, Batya's oldest sister Jozee, first born after the war, is simultaneously filmed by both her father and her grandfather.
The Family of Man
Various masked pages from (Dutch) newspapers
pastel crayon on paper, 2008 - 2009
Dimensions 58,5 x 83,5
Platitudes
De Gids Literary MagazineEvery artisthood is teeming with platitudes. Repetitive anecdotes, topoi, that give every artist biography the same setup: he or she, always alone; real talent eludes schooling; thousands shouted out, only a handful chosen. Large or small talent, they all put their lives at stake for something that wants to transcend life. Art goes before offspring, reaches beyond death.
Time Warp
collaboration with Driessens/Verstappen, Rotterdam. Project duration 2003 - 2024A cinematic report on the processes of growth and change taking place on W.G. Witteveenplein in Rotterdam. Each film began with the construction of the park in early 2003 and shows the various changes that took place in the following twenty years. The films were supplemented four times a year with new material, which resulted in four very short films of 6'35" each.
Nieuwkomer
online photo documentaryFor months after I first stood on that little bridge, I continued to circle around the windmills. Not only with my camera, but also with a microphone. When you look closer, the polder turns out to be an arena of conflicting interests. The cluttering of the landscape stands in opposition to climatological necessity; economic and ecological interests are locking horns for dominance; innovation oriented towards the future has to compete with the appreciation for history. The counter argument is always around the corner.
We
Kunstvereniging Diepenheim and Rijksmuseum Twenthe, EnschedeThe definition of the word definition is: 'the description of the essence of something in one or two highly precise and succinctly formulated sentences.' That is by no means easy, and we certainly don't pretend to be able to do so. Nevertheless, there are a lot of characteristics that we find interesting and that we come up against in wondering about what might be typical of the region known as Twente. But those things aren't so much absolute as they are relative.
In Memory Of Things To Come
time capsule, RotterdamThe history of the Wilhelminasteen began on 30 May 1891 when the 10-year-old Queen Wilhelmina and Queen Mother Emma visited Rotterdam. To celebrate the occasion, hundreds of boats sailed on the Maas and 3,000 schoolchildren performed an aubade. The brand-new little Queen will give her name to the Wilhelmina Quay and the act that goes with it is a stone-laying ceremony.
Onkenhout
galvanized bronze, textStaring at the picture of the garden on the postcard I catch a glimpse of my mother in a version of her life that she never lived, one in which Nico had gotten in touch, after that evening out. Perhaps now she'd have a different surname and be sitting by a different fire drinking wine with a different child. In a moment that feels like an oedipal short circuit, I experience something impossible: that I never existed.
Captured - How to be prepared for the past
A documentary by Batya Wolff and Arnoud HollemanIn the Netherlands, 75% of the Jewish population was killed during the Holocaust. The unique and vast photo archive of the Wolff family embodies almost one hundred years of Jewish family life - before, during and after the war. Seemingly generic family pictures unite and divide the family. For Max, first generation victim of the Nazi's, photography is a coping mechanism to deal with traumatic loss. For Batya and her two sisters, the second generation, the trauma was passed on through his lens.
Media Suicide
Masked newspapers, 2009The 38-year-old Karst T. from Huissen drove into spectators just before noon in a deliberate action to hit the royal family. The man himself was seriously injured and was in mortal danger last night. The man dodged two barriers on the Jachtlaan in Apeldoorn and drove his black Suzuki Swift into the crowd. The royal family saw from a few meters away how the man crashed into monument De Naald.