project/commission "VANUIT DE RUG GEZIEN" Asten-Someren 2010
"SEEN FROM THE BACK"
is a project that goes back to August 14, 1944 and is about the two murders of W. Wijnen mayor of Asten and P. Smulders mayor of Someren.They were brutally murdered by the SS as a settlement for the activities of the resistance in this Peel area. Many English planes that were shot down and whose pilots survived were placed with farmers. Most of them managed to return to England via an escape route. The murder of two NSB country guards near Arle-Rixel was the direct reason for the murder of the mayors.
The multi-part object is made of plywood. The stage in two parts forms a cut-out of the flat ground of the Peel. The separation between the two parts of the platform is the Zuid-Willemsvaart canal, where the murder also took place. The two objects made up of two cross-shaped bases are the places Asten and Someren. The two objects placed in the crosses form the figuration of the two mayors. The objects also appear as two chess pieces that have 'crowns' or 'temples'. In the corners of these 'temples' are peepholes through which you can look inside. On display are photos and documents related to the event in 1944, and documents from today. Because documents are still being added to this. Not everything is visible and remains more or less hidden,
The title “Seen from the back” refers directly to the murder(s), to the vulnerable moment of being threatened and murdered. The attitude one adopts when looking through the holes of the temples, into the heads where the knowledge has accumulated, is such a vulnerable moment: this attitude, together with the experience of the content, reflects this vulnerability like a glow.
In 1986 my father showed the photos of the murder for the first time. Immediately a glow came over me. A glow of impotence and sadness that was deeply hidden in my parents' lives.
Six weeks after these murders, my grandmother was fatally struck by shrapnel.
