Tilburg photographer Maria van der Heyden has been recording everyday life during corona since the beginning. She thought she’d be ready in a month or two, but after two years she’s still busy: “Things you don’t think about now. That you open the door with your elbow, that people didn’t want to push the button when crossing the street.”
900 photos of the corona crisis can all be viewed and downloaded for free via the site of the Regional Archive in Tilburg. Astrid de Beer: “In the first week of working from home, I already ran up against the walls. Because I knew this wasn’t over. This is important and will go down in the history books. I am a historian myself and I also consider it a task of the archive to record society.”
Astrid did not want to ask people to send photos of their lives in corona time: “Then you get five hundred photos of hearts for care and teddy bears in front of the window. We wanted to have all sides of society captured by a professional photographer.” And that became Maria van der Heyden. Astrid and her colleague Teuntje van der Wouw show six photos that impressed them.
1. Visit in the nursing home
Teuntje: “If you were in a care home, you were driven into a special room, where you could receive visitors. Behind plastic and red and white ribbon. You cannot put this into words.” Astrid: “A picture is worth a thousand words.”
2. Working from home
Teuntje: “I think this is the best working from home photo. The children with crayons.” Astrid: “You see the father look annoyed, like: ‘Damn!’.”
3. Outdoor Sports Lessons
Astrid: “Do you remember when sports lessons were given outside? Beautiful photos were also taken of that.” Teuntje: “Athletes are standing there cleaning their equipment. Then you immediately see what corona measures were in place at the time.”
4. Easter Mass in an Empty Church
Astrid: “The church at Easter!” Teuntje: “Mass was held in an empty church. A recording was made with one camera, because no one could be there.”
5. Present at the front door
Teuntje: “Maria came across this on the street by chance. A chocolate Easter bunny at the front door, with a sweet note. You cannot make this up, you have to have an eye for that.”
6. Crossing the Border
Teuntje: “This was at the border towards Poppel, at the beginning of the crisis. The border was closed and you could only go to Belgium with a special form.”
What is the value of this photo collection? Astrid: “I think this is a wonderful legacy for future generations of researchers.” That makes Maria a chronicler of a unique era.
At first she thinks these are too big words, but later she agrees: “I now look differently at the photos I took in the beginning. That’s how fast it goes: it’s been two years and you can already call it history. It is nice that these photos are preserved. That they are not beautiful for a certain moment and then disappear again, but really go down in history.”
All corona photos can be viewed and downloaded for free via ‘s website the regional archive in Tilburg.