The power of the moving exhibition Moving Stories is in the details ★★★★☆

“Born from the earth of Mauritania, covered by strange earth.” The Roman army officer whose tombstone you look at at the beginning of the exhibition Moving Stories, came from North Africa. He was commander of an infantry unit and probably died in the 2nd century AD. His tombstone was found in Germany, his name has been partly swept away. The lyrics tell you that he would not see his homeland again before he died.

Like this officer, there were many. Men from North Africa, from Egypt, Spain, Italy and Greece, who joined the Roman army. Sometimes voluntarily, sometimes under duress. And you can also question this voluntary nature: how much choice do you have if life in your homeland depends on hunger and poverty? So these men set out to all corners of the Roman Empire.

Migration is timeless, as you quickly conclude in Museum Het Valkhof in Nijmegen. But actually that statement is far too empty and general for what is happening here. The power of this moving exhibition lies precisely in how specifically it zooms in. Firstly in an area, namely the Lower Germanic Limes, the former border of the Roman Empire that runs right through the Netherlands towards Germany and was declared a World Heritage Site in 2021. The Dutch stretch runs from Katwijk aan Zee to near Nijmegen. Secondly to a number of questions: what do you leave behind when you leave your homeland, what do you take with you? What are you missing and which elements from your new homeland are you adopting?

The exhibition consists of two storylines that continuously intertwine throughout the exhibition. On the one hand, there are archaeological objects excavated around the Lower Germanic Limes that tell the story of the soldiers who were sent to this area, and the women, children, craftsmen and merchants who followed. It is remarkable how the exhibition makers manage to bring their world to life on the basis of the smallest and most inconspicuous objects. For example, with small Egyptian figurines, a letter fragment addressed to a doctor, or a pitcher used for fish sauce, a strong seasoning that was imported by the Romans in the early days, but which did not exactly catch on in the north.

Throughout this historical story, works of art by fifteen contemporary artists are intertwined, who take a broader view of themes such as detachment, identity and the longing for a home. One of the highlights of that is the movie My name is language by Nicoline van Harskamp. In the waiting room of a government building, people with different migration backgrounds talk about names, their meaning, and how they can or cannot be translated across different national borders. For example, a young woman talks about the different ways in which you can write ‘Mohammed’, and what consequences this can have in an asylum application or family reunification. Imagine that one interpreter writes the name of your son sister, and the other like that, how credible do you come across?

In the room where the film is shown, you will find shards of crockery in recesses in the wall, in which the owner has scratched his name. Why? There is no unequivocal answer. But after seeing Van Harskamp’s film, you can suddenly imagine how reassuring it can be to leave your own name somewhere far from home.

In this way, the exhibition brings you closer to the migrants of thousands of years ago. At the same time, you see our time in a different light through those historical glasses. Anyone with a migration background will probably find a lot of recognition in this exhibition. Those who don’t have that, get the chance to train their empathy muscles.