Travel tips: Humanities Museum Hembrug: Zaanstad

In 2001, photographer Ruben Timman visited the Humanities museum in Vietnam, following a tour led by Kofi Annan. Ruben was so moved by the bad state of the museum which had broken vitrine glass cases, immense dust, darkness and its overall withered state that he was determined to create a humanities museum himself. The dream was to allow the light of humans to shine through any darkness and in Hembrug Museum he realised that dream.  

 
The entrance holds this huge hanging photo of a young boy with the U2 line from the Mandela movie theme track Ordinary love:  '"All the beauty that's been lost before.. Wants to find us again" 

The side doors  with the red a symbol of the dark room for developing photographs the old fashioned way and inside a replica room has been created where photographs are pegged  onto a washing line.

The old terrain used to hold the second world war ammunition warehouses and manufacturing equipment. A walk around is not only bewildering in its natural blend of the human inner light against authentic old rusty doors, tattered walls, broken windows and building foundations. It's a healthy reminder of how shallow and hollow glitz and glamour can be  in comparison to the real.  

 

From outside:  Between the above doors is modern double glass so the doors and old electricity metres serve as a  reminder of the past.  

The ceiling is of metal beams and glass so there is plenty of light to illuminate all the photographs of people from all over the world with each their own story.

 

The Wall of Aim not Fame

The walls are in their original roughed up state, not sanded or painted, instead with old curling pieces of faded colour and broken tiles. Dividing the space  into compartments are broken windows or no  windows at all.

 

 

 

Weeds growing through the floor which blends into the authenticity   

 
The replica dark room 

Against such backgrounds and tattered pillars the life and expression of the photographs jumps out and the feeling and depth of humanity seeps through every open space. It is quite an experience!

 

 

Outside the museum is a continuation of the aged and old in a further authentic setting. More buildings with rusty doors, an old train cart parked in the wild grass and flowers, plus a museum of war times in the last century. The latter displays things such as gas masks, an old telephone and other ancient equipment.  It's all quite fascinating! There is also a fun outdoor futuristic teleporting cabin.

 

These black doors /wall windows hold the stories to the items exhibited which are built into the walls, for example, the gas mask below. 

  

There is another museum on the grounds which was hosting a wood exhibition and  all kinds of delightful pieces of art on creative display with a cute coffee corner. Little storerooms dotted around had mosaic decorated interiors, there are hammocks hanging from trees, the Bind Organisation coffee shop and steep metal stairways to old warehouse buildings. Walking around the complex one bumps into a tattered pair of shoes on an old wooden rotting barrel, rusty old fashioned tricycles, parked in long grass and wild flowers, and an area with graffiti and street art. 

 

Art boards in the grounds

 

 The new against the old, where this building has been designed around the trees which grow through the roof in specially created waterproof rubber circles to keep the interior dry.

 The dove symbolising peace on 5 May - Liberation Day 

So if you live in North Holland be sure to experience this impressive outdoor museum area in Zaandstad, or more specifically, Hembrug.   https://museumofhumanity.nl/