Hamilton Arts and Letters 9.2: Special Issue Dedicated to Cees and Annerie van Gemerden – Centre for Community-Engaged Narrative Arts

Read the issue here

In his introductory essay, David Froese writes:

“We need the work of Cees and Annerie, and the artists of James Street North then and the artists now to give us a way to remember, and to help us move forward wisely as a community during this time of great change. An image, as we have seen many times throughout history, has tremendous power to create communities, give them direction, and hold them together in common cause.”

About Cees and Annerie van Gemerden Check out their website to learn more

In his article on Cees and Annerie van Gemerden in The Hamilton Spectator, Jeff Mahoney extends an invitation to the reader:

Think of them next time you’re at the harbourfront, as you admire the shimmery broadloom of water, the contour of the shore, the pageant of sailboats, the people on the trails, as you listen to water lapping against the hull of the Haida, the cries of water birds. It wasn’t always thus.

As artists and longtime residents of Hamilton, Cees, and Annerie van Gemerden have brought together activism and art in their works over the years. For example, their exhibition called NoTrespassing–More Power Anyone? captures the trails folks made to the Hamilton waterfront in the ’80s when fences prevented folks from going near the water–the independent and quiet movements of citizens making their way to the water. More importantly, the exhibition also documented the toxic waste that was dumped in Hamilton’s harbor.

In another series called Red Hill, Ceese and Annerie turned their attention to the building of an expressway in the Red Hill Valley, a site declared sacred by the Haudenosaunee people.

These are a couple of examples of how they have focused their attention on a particular aspect of the land and our relationship with it in their works.