HOLLAND, Mich. — The 93rd annual Tulip Time festival, which kicks off on Saturday, May 7, has added some new exhibits this year including one titled “Zeeland Girl.” The exhibit by Dutch photographer Rem van den Bosch offers spectators a colorful display of 26 different Dutch dresses and a variety of 10-foot-tall photos suspended from the ceiling of the Holland Armory.
“This is a project we started in the southwest region of the Netherlands in the county of Zeeland,” van den Bosch said. “We work together with a whole team varying from a traditional dressmaker, a traditional wooden shoe maker, but all these dresses are linked to themes from society on how we act toward each other, how we treat the Earth and how you interact with your family. So all these works are being displayed in exhibition rooms, but also on the streets, and in schools. We have a really big response in the educational system. We will reach over 2,000 children with these topics.”
He said the intention of the project is to raise awareness about how we should treat each other, and he hopes the display will spark discussions about mutual respect, solidarity and care for the environment. The same themes are also reflected in van den Bosch’s books.
“We published three different books over the last three years,” he said. “One is about how we treat each other. It's a book about all the colors of the rainbow that are displayed into the dresses. One of them is a book about freedom where we celebrate 75 years of freedom. Children knitted all kinds of words of freedom into the dresses. And the third one is a book about caring about the earth. So we used all kinds of visual elements relating to agriculture, but also to the ocean.”
The display, which is located inside the Holland Armory, requires a ticket. For available times and pricing, click here.
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