“Checkmate!”. A groundbreaking jar in Baarle-Nassau, between the Tilburg chess grandmaster Anne Haast and her Flemish opponent Ruben Akhayan. The game board is in the middle of the border between the Netherlands and Belgium.
Strategy, tension and symbolism. That promises a game of chess in Baarle-Nassau in Brabant and the Flemish neighbor Baarle-Hertog. To make the thirty enclaves of the two municipalities visible, a chess table has been placed in the middle of the border between the Netherlands and Belgium.
The chessboard symbolizes the connectedness and dialogue between the two municipalities. “Baarle-Nassau and Baarle-Hertog have their own culture, but must ensure that they do not put each other chess mat,” says Simon Jansen of the entrepreneurial association in Baarle. He is one of the initiators of the chess table on the border. “They have to make a nice game of it together.”
Swing between the Netherlands and Belgium
The chessboard is not the only plan to make the boundaries in Baarle-Nassau and Baarle-Hertog experienced. A well in a sidewalk, covered with a glass plate, must show a jumble of pipes from both countries. There will also be a fluctuating between the Netherlands and Belgium soon. “We want to make the boundaries very tangible by visualizing them.”
