Witte de With kondigt (opnieuw) naamsverandering aan
Op 5 september 2017 kondigde het Rotterdamse kunstcentrum Witte de With, na een golf van protest, een naamsverandering aan ter vervanging van de in opspraak geraakte, koloniaal belaste instituutsnaam. Nu, drie jaar later, na een nieuwe golf van protest tegen koloniaal eerbetoon (waaronder de dramatisch ogende bekladding van de eigen gevel in de nacht van 12 juni) kondigt Witte de With (opnieuw) een naamsverandering aan die moet ingaan op 27 januari 2021, na een procedure van enkele maanden die te volgen zal zijn op een aparte website (online vanaf 14 juni), zo belooft het kunstcentrum op Instagram.
Het bericht van Witte de With op Instagram :
Egbert Alejandro Martina Ramona Sno, Hodan Warsame, Patricia Schor, Amal Alhaag, and Maria Guggenbichler published an ‘Open Letter to Witte de With’. Co-signed in support by many more people, their letter openly challenged Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art dealing with an art project on decolonization without having regarded, to begin, the institution’s namesake. The namesake refers to its street, named after a seventeenth century Dutch naval officer of the VOC and WIC, Witte Corneliszoon de With.
The impact of the Open Letter to Witte de With was deep, to the extent that it advanced an ongoing debate and process of decolonization in The Netherlands, and, no less, to the point that the critique made the institution aware it had to change. In the face of this predicament, on 7 September 2017, the institution vowed to make a name change. The institution’s new name will come into effect 27 January 2021, following public forums, an online survey, and assessment by an external advisory committee, planned for summer and autumn 2020. A website with details and information will be launched on 14 June 2020. There you will also find an outline of actions and outcomes done to date, as part of the Name Change Inititative.
In light of the recent demonstrations triggered by the Police killing of George Floyd and mobilized by the Black Lives Matter movement—in the United States and in The Netherlands, as in many other countries internationally—we announce this date and launch our website activities at this time. The facade of our building was marked overnight, another public expression of a call to change. At this time, there is a cleaning process underway that is not made by us, nor ordered by our institution. We have asked them to pause their cleaning, so that this expression makes visible the dissonant heritage and the multi-vocal society that we live in, here in Rotterdam.
LEES OOK: De tijd van loze beloftes is voorbij, een column over de steeds maar uitgestelde naamsverandering van Witte de With
