She was born in Maarssen in 1984, works in Utrecht, photographed the first generation of young people in post-apartheid South Africa for almost eighteen years (in the portrait series Born Free), and her name is Ilvy Njiokiktjien. Where her last name comes from? “My grandfather is full-blooded Chinese, my father is half Chinese and I am therefore a quarter Chinese,” Njiokiktjien explains.
Her grandfather’s name is Louis and was born in Ambon in 1902. His father – Ilvy’s great-grandfather – had previously emigrated from China to Ambon. He belonged to the Peranakan Chinese, generations with a centuries-long history of migration on Ambon.
Shelling beans in the garden, around 1915, of the house on Laan van Meerdervoort in The Hague, where the children of the Njiokiktjien family and the children of the Ongkiehong family lived together with foster parents Von Bülow. Grandpa Louis is leaning on the right against Mrs. Von Bülow.
Njiokiktjien is one of nine contemporary photographers and artists participating in the exhibition Generasi 3.0 – The stories we carry in the Photo Museum The Hague. The third generation was born and raised in the Netherlands and has a family history dating back to the former Dutch East Indies. Njiokiktjien also discovered the latter. At her aunt’s home, the sister of her recently unexpectedly deceased father Einar, she found “bags full of family photos” from the Dutch colonial period in Indonesia and from the time when Louis lived in The Hague.
The children of the Njiokiktjien family and the Ongkiehong family in a group photo with their foster parents from the Von Bülow family, in the house on Laan van Meerdervoort in The Hague.
The house on Laan van Meerdervoort in The Hague, where the children of the Njiokiktjien family and the Ongkiehong family lived together with foster parents Von Bülow.
The sons of the Njiokiktjien family and their cousins of the Ongkiehong family, skating in The Hague, around 1915.
With those albums, her search for her Dutch-Indonesian past began, she explains by telephone. “Grandpa Louis came from a large family of twelve children. His father had a coconut plantation in Ambon and eleven children, including Grandpa Louis, were sent to the Netherlands; one of the twelve stayed behind to later manage the plantation. Cousins also came along. They all ended up with a foster family on Laan van Meerdervoort in The Hague.” Her grandfather founded the Amboina company in Zeist, which traded in herbs and food from Asia.
With her work in the exhibition, Njiokiktjien highlights the time between then and now by visually editing some photos: in the black and white images of that time, she cuts color photos from a later date. She does this beautifully with a studio photo from 1913 in which her eleven-year-old grandfather Louis and both his brothers in sailor suits stand in front of a painted sea, which is supposed to represent the sea at Scheveningen. On the left is a color photo of herself as a five-year-old girl and her eight-year-old sister Aïsha at the Maarssen carnival in 1990. Aïsha’s face matches exactly the face of twelve-year-old Sander. Eyebrows and eyes continue from black and white into color. The eyes are each other’s mirror image. Ilvy herself is wearing a colorful red blouse with floral motifs, which she thought was a Chinese kimono.
With sisters, brother, cousins and niece on the balcony of the house on Laan van Meerdervoort, The Hague, where exactly a hundred years earlier grandfather Louis (right in a suit) stood with his sisters, brothers, cousins.
Sisters Aïsha (8) and Ilvy (5) Njiokiktjien during carnival in Maarssen in 1990. Brothers Sander (12), Charles (8) and Louis (11) Njiokiktjien in 1913 in a photo studio in The Hague, a year after their arrival in the Netherlands.
Ilvy Njiokiktjien, 5 years old, during carnival in Maarssen in 1990.
Grandfather Louis Njiokiktjien with his grandchildren Ilvy and her brother Esli. On grandpa’s 88th birthday.
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