Happy Holidays

July 1 through September 10, 2023

Happy Holidays. That is the common thread in the work of eight international photographers and artists. Using photography and video, Museum Hilversum shows how our vacations are celebrated in art. Photographers Enda Bowe, Garrod Kirkwood, Natacha de Mahieu, Martin Parr, Thomas Struth, Sander van Wettum and artists Helen Dowling and Samson Kambalu take you on a journey to well-known and lesser-known tourist spots on earth. A sparkling exhibition as a vacation destination!

Enda Bowe

Irish photographer Enda Bowe, shows a new series River's Mirror made during a trip to New York. He is concerned with storytelling and the search for light and beauty in the everyday. As in his other work, this new series focuses on the human being with her emotions and search in life.

Garrod Kirkwood

British artist, filmmaker and visual storyteller Garrod Kirkwood is showing two works from his series The Hubbucks. This British family is on its way to the sea with the car full of children. His work is characterized by an advertising-like style combined with a more documentary style.

Natacha de Mahieu

The fair of missing out, who doesn't know that feeling? With her series Theater of Authenticity, Belgian photographer Natacha de Mahieu explores the way we travel and the reasons we have for going to certain places. To create this series, De Mahieu selected the most popular natural places on social media based on the number of geotags. And makes dozens or hundreds of images of them, which she then merges into one image. In Happy Holidays, she shows two works that have not previously been shown in the Netherlands.

Martin Parr

The renowned British documentary photographer Martin Parr takes visitors to beaches and tourist spots around the world. Parr is known for his unique way of capturing the idiosyncrasies of ordinary life. Happy Holidays features two series specially curated for this exhibition.

Thomas Struth

On vacation, we discover new worlds and visit many museums. Michelangelo's David is one of the highlights in Florence, Italy. Audience 06 (Galleria dell'Academia), Florenz shows Thomas Struth's analysis of the dynamics of the audience and the space in which the famous David stands. By placing the camera under the sculpture, he uniquely shows a view of the audience from the perspective of the artwork.

Sander van Wettum

Dutch photographer Sander van Wettum is showing Hibernation in which he depicts the landscape of mass tourism on the southern coast of Europe. He has been exploring the concept of the "ultimate global resort" since 2010. Which, according to him, is a (dys)topical place full of promise situated between fact and fiction, dream and reality.

Samson Kambalu

As in De Mahieu's work, landscape is central to Samson Kambalu's video titled I cross a photograph. His work refers to situationism and the Chewa Nyau culture of his native Malawi. There is something surreal about the short video I cross a photograph, which he says are the cinematic fragments in which he mixes slapstick and spiritual ritual.

Helen Dowling

British artist Helen Dowling creates videos in which she explores the language of montage, emotion, mimesis, anthropomorphism and the empathetic potential of the moving image. In Happy Holidays, Dowling shows the video workThe Burning Time Slideshow, a video depicting vacation memories as dream images.