Report Wim Crouwel Lezing #8

Invited was Marian Duff (46), founder and director of OSCAM, the Open Space Contemporary Art Museum in Amsterdam Zuidoost. Since its opening as a pop-up museum in 2017, during the celebration of fifty years of the Bijlmer, OSCAM has been giving a stage to young visual artists, curators, photographers, designers, programmers, with a strong focus on young subcultures. An annual exhibition is “BOUT IT,” which focuses on hip-hop music and culture.

'Figure it out!'
About the struggle to be seen and the design power of hip-hop

Marian Duff made a powerful case for diversity and connection. She advocates making visible the creativity of black, young artists, designers, photographers, musicians, stylists, often with roots in the Caribbean or the African diaspora. With OSCAM she does this, from the Bijlmer, for the neighborhood, and for anyone who wants to learn about or contribute to these other perspectives. Marian creates exhibitions, or gives artists and others the space to stretch the boundaries of regular museum work bottom-up in OSCAM. Young talent, young curators, artists, designers can work in dialogue to present their own visual language, and learn from each other and their audiences. Duff wants to activate an audience that might not normally step into a white “museum temple” on a regular basis, but is developing and propagating an energetic creative culture of their own.

Hip-hop, which originated as a music and cultural movement in African-American communities in American cities, is a great source of inspiration, bringing together diverse artistic expressions. Marian talked infectiously about Café De Duivel, Amsterdam's “hip-hop embassy,” where she immersed herself in hip-hop culture no less than eight days a week. Street fashion, dance, styling, critical texts, pounding poems to even more rhythmic music, with a community of mostly black, energetic women, men, queers, who develop art and cultural expressions from their own backgrounds, these are all sources of inspiration for her work at OSCAM.

At the Stedelijk Museum, long seen as the guardian and determiner of the canon of Dutch and international art and design, Duff questioned that canon. Whose canon is this; who drew it up; what is High and Low art, who defines it, who adapts to whom? Who is seen and who is not seen?

She also questioned the context of the “Wim Crouwel lecture. Wim Crouwel, Anthon Beeke, and their well-known (white, male) companions: were they aware that they were at the center of that white design canon and helped determine it?

Marian Duff's lecture was an open, enthusiastic and inescapable call to “figure it out,” to give space to other stories, other contexts, other connections than what we usually see in white museums.

Some questions from the audience:

What is Marian's dream for the future:

MD: To have her own permanent bigger venue. She explained that this is being worked hard on and that OSCAM is moving to a bigger, better space in the Bijlmer in about two years, where even more can be made possible.

MD: She would be pleased if OSCAM could be carried without her. They are working hard on that with curatorial programs and with a great team.

What tips does Marian have for other organizations?

Connect! With other individuals (e.g. when you're at a loss for words), with other organizations, with other City districts, to share knowledge and experiences, to gain more strength together, to feed and learn from each other.