Our sailing boat being stranded in Enkhuizen for repairs gave us the opportunity  to re-visit the ZuiderzeeMuseum, an open-air museum featuring life at the former Zuiderzee. Former, because the Afsluitdijk closed the Zuiderzee off. No more ebb and flood, no more salt water, even. Renamed IJsselmeer it now is one of the largest sweetwater lakes in the world. The sea was tamed, and a way of life was ended – the ZuiderzeeMuseum being the Dutch way of coming to terms with this.

Anyway, it was a fun visit, not in the least because the museum had a brainwave recently and started working with Dutch Designers as a way to add interest to their collection: way cool is what they are after now. Top Dutch Designers are invited to make new work using the museum collection as a starting point or point of reference. Which has already resulted in some interesting stuff – check for example the Scholten en Baijings Truly Dutch furniture series, or the Flax series Christien Meindertsma came up with.

For the first time in years I went to the BinnenMuseum, too – the part of the ZuiderzeeMuseum that is indoors. It being a very rainy day. My dilligence was well rewarded, for the new brooms at ZZM have swept the Indoors Museum intelligently, making room for a new exhibition space. Which now holds an exhibiti0n presenting paintings and photo’s from the ING Collection under the title The Colour of Water – will blog about this shortly – well worth a visit.