A Family portrait
Performance Sander Breure & Witte van Hulzen
Performance — 22, 23, Nov 24, 2024
Is there such a thing as an “average Dutch family?” If so, where do they live, how do they spend their time and what do they consider “normal?”
- Price
- Museum ticket + € 3,-
- Location
- Auditorium
- Time
- Nov 22, 7 pm until 9.40 pm
Nov 23, 2.30 pm until 5.10 pm
Nov 24, 2.30 pm until 5.10 pm - Main language
- Dutch with English subtitles
In 2014, after conducting research at Statistics Netherlands, the artist duo Sander Breure and Witte van Hulzen found a family as average as can be. With the family members’ permission, the artists eavesdropped on them in their home non-stop for a week.
The makers used the audio transcripts to create a script which is faithfully reenacted by four actors. The resulting performance is an extremely artificial, alienating version of real conversations—including the garbled articulations of authentic speech—that contain the banality as well as the intimacy of our lives. In a time when our devices can potentially record all our conversations, these scenes also hold up a mirror to us: what consequences does this everyday surveillance have on our behavior?
In 2024, Breure and Van Hulzen recorded the family again. Ten years later, the eldest daughter is about to leave the parental home, while the teenage son devotes most of his time to his game console. The two eras are performed for the audience in a double bill.
The performance is English subtitled.
Performed by: Wine Dierickx, Matijs Jansen, Lisa van de Wiel, Abel Peeters, Jonne van der Moolen, Mina Behrisch, Juliette van Leeuwen
Commissioned by: Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
Supported by: Mondriaan Fonds
Director: Sander Breure & Witte van Hulzen
Production: Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
Co-production: Wunderbaum, IDFA
Screenplay: Sander Breure & Witte van Hulzen