Every day we read about people who tragically lost their lives while fleeing. But what does it mean to have to give up your own home, job, family and home? In the “FLUCHT” exhibition, in Zürich, visitors can take on the role of those affected and get an idea of ​​what it means to be on the run. The exhibition is a joint project of several institutions of which the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees UNHCR. and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation SDC. In addition to the fate of the refugees, the project deals with topics such as refugee movements due to climate change and questions of cultural diversity, identity and opportunities through integration.

We have an appointment in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, for a farewell dinner  and we have built a citytrip around it with two days in Zürich and two days in Schaffhausen. The photo shows the skyline of the city along the river Limmat.

We spent a day in a bird hide at The Veluwe. This common backbird (Dutch: merel) is drying up after a bath in the water pool.

For one of my photo projects I desired a few photo’s of folk costumes in The Netherlands, especially for the region The Veluwe. There  are a few villages left in the country where people wear regional clothing in daily life. However, there are many communities who preserve the cultural identity and show the costumes during festivals and celebrations. The photo shows a costume of the community in Nunspeet taken at such an event.

Cemitério das âncoras (The Anchor Cemetery ) is a monument on the island of Tavira (Ilha da Tavira), as a testament to the former tuna fishing period in the Algarve. The anchors had been used in tuna fishing to fix the nets on the sea bottom of the Ria Formosa. The monument is situated at the beach ‘Praia do Barril’.

The western part of the south coast of Portugal has beautiful cliffs and rocks, while the eastern part has lagoons, part of the Parque National da Ria Formosa. The photo shows the impressive rock formations of Ponta da Piedade in Lagos.

We started a 10-day round-tour in the south of Portugal. Starting and ending in Lisbon, we are travelling in Alentejo and Algarve.

Our first experience is enjoying the  endless areas of cork oaks where you can see where the bark has been extracted from the trees. After harvesting it will take many years before a new layer of bark can be extracted.

For two top exhibitions we travelled to the northern region of The Netherlands: Frida Kahlo in Assen and JR: Chronicles in Groningen. JR is the pseudonym of a French artist who started his career as grafitti painter. He started to use photography to create his art works, but he does not see himself as a photographer, but as an artist. Through the years he created remarkable art projects, like Face to Face (photo): duo photo’s of Palestinians and Israelis with the same profession and glued on the separation wall.  Listen to JR on a TED talk here.

I posted a photo of the European mouflon earlier in October 2021. Today, I had a new encounter with this beautiful wild sheep at the Veluwe.

It was opened in september 2021, the Holocaust Names Memorial in Amsterdam and today we had the opportunity to visit this impressive monument. The memorial is a labyrinth of passageways flanked by two metre tall brick walls. Each brick represents a victim with an inscription of name, date of birth and age of death. On top of the walls there are shapes of reflective stainless steel. Seen from above, the steel forms four Hebrew letters that make up a word that translates as ‘In memory of’. The memorial is a design of Daniel Libeskind.