Ministerie van Berge en Shi(MBS) is a Sino-Dutch agency that activates an exchange P2P network. Through visual and research projects MBS bridges the geo-cultural distance. Hereby the focus lays on the creation of a connection between individuals from various disciplines and backgrounds. MBS is now operating a interdisciplinary research-based project entitled 50/50 inspired by the Sino-Dutch 50th Anniversaries of 2022. Here in MBS focuses on the current trade of goods and ideas between the two nations.

Year 2022 sees the 50th Anniversary of the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations between China and the Netherlands. Reflecting on this, we as artists from both countries are initiating a research-based project as a duo. Starting from our own perspective, we want to collaborate and study the economic and cultural exchanges between each other’s home countries, to further merge our insight, and deliver a visual presentation. Due to the global situation and travel restrictions, we are working and communicating online, assisting each other with our developing research. This project highlights the Sino-Dutch cross-cultural interactions.

“Individuals represent the essence of the country’s bilateral relations, students and scholars, tourists, piano players and photographers, writers and entrepreneurs, architects and artists. Over the last fifty years, these personal relationships have grown in depth and number.” said Wim Geerts, Ambassador of the Netherlands to China.

In response to the “Sino-Dutch 50”, as a representative of bilateral personal relationships, Chinese artist Huilin and Dutch artist Laila initiated a dialogue this year to look back at history and reflect on the results of contemporary Sino-Dutch interactions in trade and culture, and to brainstorm, disperse, focus, invite and reach more people and issues in the process of dialogue.

The dialogue begins with a two-person transnational research-based art project: we both have our own insights on the phenomenon of cultural transplantation, which brings together a Chinese artist who studied in the Netherlands and is now practicing contemporary art in Shenzhen, the Greater Bay Area, and a Dutch artist who has has enriched her art practice with cultural research and is pursuing a master’s degree in religious studies in Amsterdam. We will both study the influence and change of each other’s countries on our own: Huilin departs from
The Dutch flower town in the Nanshan District of Shenzhen to trace the bulb roots
of the cut flowers, following the seedpods and bulbs exported by Dutch flower
companies to Yunnan, all the way west; Laila starts from the backyard of middle-class
Dutch families in the suburbs of Amsterdam, where she notices that in the secular life
of the Dutch people, Buddha as a symbol of calm and Zen, following
the label of a Buddha statue placed as an ornament to the building materials market
where it was purchased, all the way east. We will bring our own questions, from our
respective ends, and use the advantages of our native language and cultural environment
to complement each other and to exchange knowledge and labor.

That’s why we go fifty-fifty, to share and be fair, to maintain individuality and
strengthen our relationship. By devoting 50% of each partner’s knowledge and labor,
we will be achieving 100% as a result. 50% stands for the Dutch contributions to China:
flowers export from the Netherlands. The other 50% stands for the Chinese thoughts and
symbols that change Dutch people’s daily life.

We envision making our Duo Exhibition happen in both China and the Netherlands. We want
to bring the created material from each other to The Hague, Shenzhen and Xiamen and
present our insight and visuals at local project spaces, where we share our knowledge
about: how the Netherlands influenced China in commerce and creative industries in the
contemporary era. As well as insights into, and reflections on, the influence of Chinese
aesthetics and mentalities present in Dutch material and immaterial culture.

This project and exhibition is made possible with the generous support by the Consulate
General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Guangzhou.

Gallery