Design & Artists | THE NETHERLANDS About the SCULPTURE GARDEN
Artihove Arts Centre is located in the magnificent surroundings of the De Rottemeren nature reserve north of Rotterdam. This typical Dutch polder landscape with its ditches, rows of pollarded willows, and wide meadows forms the ideal backdrop for the various art forms in our collection.
The works of many different artists are displayed both indoors and outdoors. The sculpture garden is open from May to October. This year, special attention has been given to the breadth of the exhibition, and the fountains are a surprising new element. These delightful water features are prominent in the open pasture and on the big lake. It is the sculptures, however, that give the garden their special character. An impression of this year’s exhibition can be found on the Artihove website.
Aad van Dijk “Innovation is part of each culture, the same as heritage is. To create a balance between them is not easy. With Artihove, we have created multiple after-life designs. This is a perfect example of respecting a delicate balance between innovation, culture and heritage. My father died when I was a young teenager. In my time, it was not common to grieve by talking about your childhood memories of your dad. Happily, the culture in the Netherlands has become more open about death and deceased people. The current Dutch culture allows people to respect heritage, but at the same time, this type of new, open grieving allows people to heal in a better way and not to bury the past loved ones forever. I really respect the Americans a lot for the way they deal with grief. After disasters and personal tragedies, people pick up their lives quickly with tons of positive energy and turn a sad situation into a good cause, like you have seen with many families who have lost a child to things that could have been avoided. In this way, the life is given a double meaning, yet is not lost by initiatives for good causes.”