The Nieuwe Kolk (DNK) in Assen is in the objections committee against its landlord this afternoon; the municipality. The municipality of Assen owns the Cultuurpaleis on Weiersstraat. The use of the dispute is the placement of a Moluccan artwork on the stairs for the theater building.
The municipality of Assen sees the place. And therefore issued an environmental permit to the Moluccan working group that wants to put the monument there. But not DNK. So it challenges the permit.
She already did that last year. But according to Assen, DNK’s objection had officially arrived a day late, so the objection was wiped out as an inadmissible. DNK fought that in court, was right there, and so the objection is still dealt with in terms of content. In the meantime, a year has passed.
The DNK management finds the location, for which the municipality issued an environmental permit, ‘awkward chosen’. Lawyer Jewan de Goede says on behalf of the theater management that the stairs are especially important ‘as a public stage’. “And that is not so good for a monument to a specific target group.”
The plans for the Moluccan artwork date from two years ago. On March 22 this year, the monument should have been unveiled, on the date on which in 1951 the first ship arrived with Moluccans in the port of Rotterdam. But the resistance of the new Kolk threw a spanner in the works.
A group of Asser Moluccans, united in the Baru 21 working group, thought it was high time a few years ago for an educational artwork in a public place in Assen. That should tell the story about the historical union between Moluccans and Assen. The choice fell on a design of three Moluccan figures, made of corten steel. And most suitable place would be on the stairs for DNK.
But in the eyes of the theater management, the stairs are not intended as a commemorative place for a small group from society. “It is a public place that must also remain publicly accessible to everyone. It is unsuitable as a memorial site for any time in history,” said lawyer Jewan de Goede, on behalf of DNK.
“Great to want to depict Moluccan history in a work of art, but then think of a better place in Assen for that.” The stairs must remain freely accessible, says DNK. And also at events, such as the TT Festival, the stairs are gratefully used as a sitting and standing stand. The three Moluccan figures are then seen as a stand-in-the-way.
The municipal objections committee may make a judgment on the basis of the hearing this afternoon:. Is Assen as a landlord of the Cultuurpaleis is the same and should the tenant DNK simply arrange in the place? Or Assen, together with the Moluccan initiative group, still has to look for a less controversial place.