Oude werken, jonge schrijvers | Het alternatief (Old works, young writers | The alternative)

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In the series Oude werken, jonge schrijvers (Old works, young writers), eighteen Flemish and Dutch writing talents who took part in deBuren's 2024 writing residency were inspired by works from the collection of the Mauritshuis in The Hague.

The common theme is The Alternative: the young makers looked at the centuries-old paintings with an eye for alternative history and bring them to life in short, powerful texts in their own artistic language. With poetry, prose, essays and song lyrics, they let you experience the old works in a unique way.

The young makers recited their texts live in the Mauritshuis during the Writers Unlimited International Literature Festival The Hague on Friday evening 24 January 2025, start 18:30 hours, end 20:00 hours. The performances will be in Dutch.

Festival tip: afterwards, it was a ten-minute walk from the Mauritshuis to Theater aan het Spui. From 20:00 (doors open from 19:00), the grand festival night Friday Night Unlimited started there and in the adjacent Filmhuis Den Haag on five stages. You chose your own route along the many readings, talks and performances by many foreign and Dutch authors and artists.

Authors
Aska Hayakawa, Dan Afrifa, Emilie Pariel, emma ydiers, Frances Welling, Helen Weeres, Hilde Onis, Jan Wester, Lennert De Vroey, Lin An Phoa, L.J. De Brouwer, Mei-yun Boswinkel, Mieke ‘Mik’ Schelstraete, Naomi van Kleef, Roan Kasanmonadi, Sad Banana, Stefanie Parisius-Sewotaroeno and Wietse Leenders.

Some authors could also be seen and heard elsewhere in the festival edition 2025. Stefanie Parisius-Sewotaroeno and singer XILLAN performed as the support act of the theatre production BRADA about Surinamese freedom fighters in Theater De Vaillant (pay what you can for a ticket here). Authors L.J. de Brouwer, Naomi van Kleef, Wietse Leenders, Hilde Onis, Helen Weeres and Jan Wester performed on Saturday afternoon 25 January 2025 in the foyer of Theater aan het Spui during the Open Mic event of The Hague poetry collective FFÛH (13-14 hours, admission free).

The texts of these 18 authors were published early December 2024 in a special of Dutch literary magazine De Revisor, flanked by new work by five alumni writing residents: Frank Heinen (writing residency 2013), Alma Mathijsen (writing residency 2015), Bob Vanden Broeck (writing residency 2017), Amarylis De Gryse (writing residency 2019) and Zindzi Tillot Owusu (writing residency 2023). Order a copy of the Revisor-special Het alternatief here on the website of De Revisor.

The deBuren writing residency
Every summer since 2012, Flemish-Dutch house deBuren has been taking up-and-coming writing talent from the Low Countries to Paris on a writing residency. They stay there for a fortnight to get to know each other's work and ideas across borders and to work on new material.

In Oude werken, jonge schrijvers, the 2024 batch of young writers brought paintings from the 17th-century collection of museum Mauritshuis in The Hague to life in a unique way in short prose, poetry and audio stories. The question to them was as simple as it was challenging: write a new text about an old work, starting from one key question: what do you see when you look at these artefacts with an eye for ‘The Alternative’, alternative history?

All texts of Oude werken, jonge schrijvers were published in literary magazine De Revisor, and can be read and listened to in deBuren's digital Magazine and on the website of cultural organisation de lage landen.

Find more information on the writings residency on the website of deBuren here.

Oude werken, jonge schrijvers was organised by Flemish-Dutch house deBuren in collaboration with Mauritshuis, De Revisor and Writers Unlimited International Literature Festival The Hague.

Information

Date and time Friday 24 January 2025 from 18:30 to 20:00 hrs
Location Mauritshuis
Price SOLD OUT

Line-up

Stefanie Parisius-Sewotaroeno

(Suriname, 1993) is a Surinamese author of Javanese descent who mainly writes poetry. She grew up in De Hulp, Commewijne and draws inspiration from culture, nature and social issues. In 2016, she won the Write Now! Audience Award, in 2022 she was a participant of Vrystaat Kunstefees in South Africa and in 2023 one of her poems was featured in the exhibition Famiri Familie of Stadsarchief Amsterdam and Nationaal Archief Suriname. Stefanie is currently working on her debut. She is one of 18 Flemish and Dutch writing talents inspired by works from the Mauritshuis collection in The Hague for the series Oude werken, jonge schrijvers (Old Works, Young Writers). As part of the Writers Unlimited festival, the authors will recite their work live at The Mauritshuis on the evening of Friday 24 January 2025.
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Aska Hayakawa

(2000) grew up as a third-culture kid in Leiden. The talent of being neither one nor the other is the foundation for her work. Aska wrote theatre texts for Dutch theatre company Club Guy & Roni, and her stories were published in De Gids and De Internet Gids.
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Dan Afrifa

(1994) is a writer, columnist, journalist and historian. He self-published four book projects: Kumasi, Amsterdam, Paris and London, and subsequently published in national Dutch news weekly De Groene Amsterdammer, Dutch national newspapers de Volkskrant and Het Parool, among others. As a historian, he graduated with an (oral history) study on the history and heritage value of the Kwaku Festival in Amsterdam Zuidoost. As a sophomore at the Schrijversvakschool, he tries to bring together prose and essay, dreams and contemplation.
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Emilie Pariel

(1995) writes prose and other matters. She devours paper hoping to turn into a book. The first sign is noticeable: when the wind blows, the sound of pages turning is heard from her. She is working on her debut novel, in which the text itself takes up the pen.
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emma ydiers

(1997) likes to think about archives, narratives, horses, knowledge and time. Their star sign is Capricorn, but actually would rather be Aquarius. emma never knows what is relevant to tell. Their doctoral research focuses on strategies to challenge the dominant and exclusionary historiography of feminism in Belgium.
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Frances Welling

writes and translates. She studied Cultural Studies at Radboud University and Russian, Slavic Literature and Translation Studies at the University of Amsterdam. From 2017 to 2020 she programmed literary events at Amsterdam-based Stichting Perdu, since autumn 2020 she has been editor of digital literary magazine DIG. Essays and translations have appeared on Hard//Hoofd, in the nY and in Tijdschrift voor Slavische Literatuur (Journal of Slavic Literature).
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Helen Weeres

(1996) has a background in poetry, Literary & Cultural Analysis and Gender & Sexuality Studies and works in the (investigative) arts with regenerative farmers, scientists and other artists. With their poetry, Helen wants to eradicate anthropocentrism, which is also the thread running through their exploration of human-nature relations through rituals fuelled by ecology and vanished pagan rituals or folklore.
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HIlde Onis

(The Netherlands, 1994) is a visual artist, makes sculptures and installations as well as writing prose and poetry. The work explores what issues of interdependence exist between us and everything we surround ourselves with, and examines the linguisticity that resides in craft and material. Hilde exhibits at various cultural institutions and is currently studying at the Amsterdam-based Schrijversvakschool (School of Writing).
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Jan Wester

(1995) is a writer and sculptor. He studied Image & Language at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy and Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam. He participated in the Dutch Foundation for Literature's Slow Writing Lab and is currently working on his debut novel Koeman. Earlier, Hard/Hoofd published two of his short stories in 2022. De Groene Amsterdammer published his essay Naoki-van-vlees (2022), on autism and Facilitated Communication in response to the documentary The Reason I Jump.
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Lennert De Vroey

(Belgium, 1994) works as a writer, theatre maker, researcher and journalist. He does so both alone and in various collaborations, with varying media and for diverse audiences. Language is at the heart of his practice, which stems from an investigative method. Spatial, travel, logistics and food are recurring themes. He studied Word Art and Political Science, was born in Borgerhout and lives in Brussels.
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Lin An Phoa

(1995) writes poetry and performs as a spoken word artist. In her work, she explores how language, poetry, and the stage can be welcoming spaces, with room for underrepresented perspectives. She investigates questions surrounding cultural identity, feminism, choice menus, systemic criticism, muscle memory, and self-care culture. Her poetry is an invitation to connection, softening, and change. Her texts have appeared in De Revisor and the anthology Stip op de Horizon, among others. She can be seen as both a performer and host at many cultural venues and festivals.

Go to the website of Lin An Phoa
Instagram: @linanph
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L.J. de Brouwer

(1996) grew up in a small village on the Belgian-Dutch border and has been living in Berlin for six years. L.J. strives to approach everything in life as devoid of hierarchy as possible: speaking, thinking, loving, existing. This is a constant learning process, in which literature, especially poetry, is a loving accomplice.
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Mei-yun Boswinkel

(2003) is often out and about, looking for stories both physically and online. Currently studying Creative Writing at ArtEz, she previously participated in Das Mag's summer camp. She writes with an eye for humanity, especially its uncomfortable, unknowing side. Her work translates into prose, audio and non-fiction.
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Mieke 'Mik' Schelstraete

(Belgium, 2001) is a graphics student at KASK Ghent and creates visual art, comics and books, and writes prose and essays. Films and the intersections between image and text are central. Their work is mainly self-published, but has also appeared on Fantomas. Mik is co-founder of publisher/collective Zwarte Pagina and musician with Hartworm.
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Naomi van Kleef

(1999) is a writer, performer, image-maker and socio-cultural researcher. In her current work, she explores female voices through personal (diary) histories and community theatre. She participates in the FOTODOK Lighthouse project and is an editor at Simulacrum magazine. As part of collective Buitenplaats Brienenoord, she rehearses the future on a city island.
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Roan Kasanmonadi

(1995) is a Rotterdam-based poet and spoken word artist. Alongside this, he is a trainee psychiatrist and modern dancer. In his work, he combines abstract associations with everyday language and references to pop culture. He has previously spoken for Poetry International, Mensen Zeggen Dingen and Brainwash, among others. He took part in the Paris writing residence of deBuren. In 2024, he published his debut collection Vuurbloem (Fire flower), in which he travels through a variety of landscapes - from the Rotterdam quayside to the race tracks in Mario Kart. Along the way, he describes how life can lambast you, and how you learn to pick yourself up again.

Instagram: @kasanmonadi
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Sad Banana

attempts to look at the world from the perspective of a banana. From inconsistent reflections, it attempts to make an existential fruit salad in the form of a musical concert. Filled with lyrics that vacillate between grandiloquence and panic attack, vulnerability and kitsch, politics and pastiche. Sad B. uses their fondness for punk, rap music and Dadaism to create a contemporary rendition of what it means to be an overripe banana in a post-capitalist world. It makes them feel sad, but tears become beats if you know how to use them well. Sad!
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Wietse Leenders

(1997) enjoys writing stories in which narrators sing rather than tell, characters stumble and get caught between time, bears are traded, fathers are chased in reverse, and madness always threatens to strike but never really does. Wietse studied Theatre Studies (UU) and Creative Writing (ArtEZ). He published short stories, including in De Revisor, his graduation novella was nominated for the Nieuwe Types Afstudeerprijs 2022 and he participated in the Slow Writing Lab in 2023. He makes literary programmes, teaches at ArtEZ Arnhem, writes for de Theaterkrant and is co-founder of the still shadowy post-punk duo RIP Rib Ruimteschip.
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