Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum crawling with giant ants

AMSTERDAM, Sept 16 (Reuters) – Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum, residence to Dutch masterpieces like Rembrandt’s “Nightwatch”, will quickly have its partitions and home windows overrun by 700 large ants, as a part of a brand new exhibit.

By breaking art work conventions, “Home Taken,” by Colombian artist Rafael Gomezbarros, needs to attract consideration to migration and compelled displacement.

Impressed by the Colombian battle between the federal government and guerrilla teams which began in 1964 and compelled hundreds of thousands of Colombian residents to go away their properties, the our bodies of Gomezbarros’s ants are produced from two casts of human skulls, representing each victims and perpetrators, Gomezbarros advised Reuters.

The ants’ legs are sticks from Jasmine bushes, used throughout the battle to cowl the our bodies of victims to masks the odor of demise.

The that means of “Home Taken,” which has beforehand proven in Colombia, Bolivia, the US and Sweden, adjustments over time relying on its viewers, he stated.

Individuals migrate for various causes, Gomezbarros added, corresponding to “a rustic in chapter, warfare or lack of alternatives.”

“The ants symbolise the industriousness, resilience and cooperative spirit of individuals”, Rijksmuseum curator Julia Kantelberg defined, including that letting individuals make their very own associations is a part of the art work’s purpose.

“Casa Tomada” is a component of a bigger exhibition, “Crawly Creatures”, which is able to begin Sept. 30 and run up till Jan. 15, 2023. It focuses on the ever-changing perceptions of crawly creatures, corresponding to ants but additionally toads, snakes and spiders, within the arts and sciences.

Reporting by Charlotte Van Campenhout; modifying by Jonathan Oatis

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