2018: Exhibition Saudade – Expatriate Archive Centre Anniversaries

About

In 2018, the Expatriate Archive Centre (EAC) celebrated its 10th anniversary as an independent foundation. To mark this milestone, the EAC launched Saudade, an art project showcasing collections acquired by the EAC over the past 10 years. Saudade is a Portuguese word meaning profound longing for something or someone beloved and absent. Since the EAC collects letters, diaries, photographs, and other representations of expat life, these emotions are often represented in the EAC’s collection.

The EAC invited 10 artists who drew inspiration from individual collections in the archive. Each of them worked with a variety of media, including porcelain, gold, rubber, wood, oil and acrylic paints, photography, textiles, and printing. The final artworks were fitted together in the iconic travelling suitcase. The suitcase used for this exhibition was previously owned by EAC’s co-founder Judy Moody-Stuart, and for many years, it travelled with her around the world. It is a reminder of the precious things — both tangible and intangible — that expatriates take with them when they move to a new place.

Alongside the exhibition, the EAC published the book Saudade: An Intersection of Archives and Art. The book has conversations with each artist, images and descriptions of their art pieces, archival pieces that inspired them, essays from historical and artist perspectives, and the full story of the celebrated suitcase. Please get in touch with us if you would like to receive a copy of this book.

The Saudade Exhibition was on display across multiple locations. It first opened at the Twelve Twelve Gallery in The Hague in 2018. The exhibition then travelled to other cities and was showcased in Maastricht at the Boekenhandel Dominicanen, the Rotterdam City Archives and the Atrium The Hague. See our brochure if you are interested in hosting this exhibition at your location.

Artists

Natalie McIlroy (curator and an artist for the Saudade project) is a Scottish visual artist and curator currently based in The Hague. She studied Environmental Art at Glasgow School of Art and graduated with a Master’s Distinction from Chelsea College of Art and Design in London in 2010. Natalie’s practice is site-specific, community-aware and installationbased. Her curatorial projects are concerned with collaboration and interdisciplinary approaches to combine heritage and contemporary art.
Interview with Natalie

Monique Prinsloo is a fine artist who lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa. She completed her Master of Fine Arts (MFA) at Michaelis School of Fine Art (University of Cape Town) in February 2012. Her MFA thesis ‘Falling into Gentle Ruin’ focussed on finding inspiration from a vast collection of found images, objects and writing. In 2013 Monique received a grant from the National Arts Council of South Africa to attend the NES artist residency in Iceland, where she produced a body of work titled Iceland: Reclaim of Form and Void.
Interview with Monique

Thomas Nondh Jansen is a photographer and children’s bookmaker. He graduated from the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague in 2013. In his practice, he searches for his place in the world, between the two cultures that he connects with. In 2016, his book De olifant die niet wist of hij verdwaald was [The elephant who didn’t know whether he was lost] was published by Leopold.
Interview with Thomas

Masaaki Oyamada is a graphic designer and stamp maker based in The Hague. One of his principal interests is incorporating craftsmanship into contemporary conversation. Exploring personal and artistic truth is a major theme in his work. His last exhibition was titled Nice to Stamp You and was shown at the Hajime Gallery, Kumamoto, Japan.
Interview with Masaaki

Christopher Squier is an artist based in San Francisco. He recently graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture from the San Francisco Art Institute (2015). Using dark humour and combining images of luxury and violence, his projects reference crime scenes, horror movies, and architectural rubble. His work has been shown in Boston, Cordoba, Prague and San Francisco, and is in the collection of the Prague Gallery of Czech Glass.
Interview with Christopher

Janne Van Gilst is a photographer based in The Hague. In her work, she focuses on our environment, its landscape and how we shape and relate to it. She is represented by Meraki Agency and was nominated for the Foto Kees Scherer Prize in 2015.
Interview with Janne

Kevin Andrew Morris is a Scottish ceramicist based in Glasgow, Scotland. He developed his practice initially within the ceramics department at Glasgow School of Art. Kevin has been striving to find new ways to incorporate various techniques and processes with other disciplines. Using a variety of materials and archival material, he develops conversations between craftsmanship and heritage.
Interview with Kevin

Carla Wright is a London-based artist, a founding member of Ursus Housing Co-operative, part of the artist group Vulpes Vulpes, and a mother. Her work explores social housing, communal and play architecture of the UK’s ‘new towns’ and cities. She focusses on self-build, co-operative living, and ways of remaining in a city when the current political and economic climate is pushing people out to the edges.
Interview with Carla

Euf Lindeboom graduated from the Academy Minerva in Groningen in 1991. She specialises in painting, drawing and graphic design. Three-dimensional work has been added over the years. She also writes and publishes poems. Her last solo exhibition was at Harmonie in Leeuwarden in 2015.
Interview with Euf

Nico Angiuli lives between Bari, Italy and Tirana, Albania. He attended the Fine Arts Academies of Rome and Bari and finished his studies in Venice with a Master’s in Production and Design in Visual Arts. Between 2006 and 2010 he collaborated with Stalker group in Rome and in 2007 he co-founded llmotorediricerca, which works on trans-border projects between Italy, Albania and Greece.
Interview with Nico