A series of events, talks, performances, and screenings that draw on Cinema Olanda and its underlying questions surrounding the Netherlands' (inter)national image regarding the Dutch cultural, political, and historical landscape. These will be meditated upon in dialogue, in the spirit of artist Wendelien van Oldenborgh's wider practice, expanding on key topics that have emerged through her process and collaborations with academics, thinkers, writers, artists and institutions. A bike tour organized by OMI will explore Pendrecht, where Cinema Olanda (2017) was shot, and which stands as a key community in the narrative of Rotterdam the city, architecture post-Reconstruction, and changing topographies of community and social history.

Friday 16 June, from 5 pm

Witte de With Summer opening program, with an introduction to Cinema Olanda: Platform by Wendelien van Oldenborgh and Lucy Cotter at 7:30pm, and a special performance by the band Addiction at 8 pm, who featured in Wendelien van Oldenborgh's title film for the Dutch Pavilion at the Venice Biennial.

This program coincides with the opening of the exhibition Öğüt & Macuga.

Saturday 17 June, 2 - 6 pm

14.00 Screening of archival footage by Cineclub Vrijheidfilms with talks between Wendelien van Oldenborgh (artist), Andre Reeder (Film Maker) and Juanita Lalji (Educator, Activist).

15.30 Screening of Wendelien van Oldenborgh's Prologue: Squat/Anti-Squat (2016)

16.30 What it the significance of a Platform at this moment of reconfiguration in the Dutch artistic and cultural landscape? What are the current conditions for critique, for agency and for solidarity? Panel Discussion on ‘conditions for criticality’, moderated and with an introduction by curator Lucy Cotter. With Amandla Awethu! (writer, community organizer, associated with ‘First Things First’), Charl Landvreugd (Artist, Curator, Writer), David Dibosa (Writer, Curator), among other speakers.

Contribution by Patricia Kaersenhout (Artist).

Sunday 18 June, 2 pm

Led by artist Wendelien van Oldenborgh and an architectural guide from OMI, a specially curated bike tour will travel through Rotterdam to the district of Pendrecht. Pendrecht's beautiful modernist St Bavo Church, designed by HNM Nevkens in 1958, is a central feature of the tour, and the location of Van Oldenborgh's film Cinema Olanda (2017), currently on show at the Venice Biennale. Other architectural aspects of Pendrecht will be explored that focus on the area’s renowned urban design by Lotte Stam Beese, devised to address the social diversity of the city in the reconstruction period post World War II. Pendrecht was highly acclaimed in its time, featuring at both the Congrès internationaux d'architecture moderne VII (1949) and IX (1953), and in international architecture press. The event coincides with Architecture Day, Rotterdam.

Start: Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Witte de Withstraat 50, Rotterdam
End: Pendrecht / Slinge metro station

Tickets: € 7,50 (with own bike) / €12,50 (with bike rental)
Tickets available through OMI