Celebrations - from an ordinary birthday to major religious festivals including Eid al-Fitr, Keti Koti, Diwali and Christmas - imply at some point special food or even traditional recipes. In this age of cultural exchanges, hunger, loneliness and digital social interactions but of physical social alienation, the idea of getting together and sharing a celebration is even more important.
To this purpose, the Princessehof National Museum of Ceramics in Leeuwarden, The Netherlands, is exploring the traditions and symbols of festive meals with the wide-ranging exhibition "Celebrate" (through 20th August 2023).
Based on different celebrations - such as Lunar New Year, Carnival, Passover, Eid al-Fitr, Keti Koti (a celebration of the abolition of slavery commemorated in various places in The Netherlands), Diwali and Christmas, but including also a children's party, a students' chaotic festival, a birthday, a wedding and a selamatan - the exhibition goes through a variety of festive tables, dishes and stories.
Celebrations may vary, but, since food and drink are always present in such events, ceramics always have a key role. Celebrations require indeed the use of our finest tableware or of traditional pieces passed on from generation to generation.
Curators decided therefore to arrange the exhibition in different tables with twelve installations displaying over 600 objects from the Princessehof's archive, but also cherished objects from people all over The Netherlands, who also shared their memories and traditions in an audio tour compiled by the museum researchers.
Letty provides visitors with an insight on the traditional food for Passover, including matzos, fried egg and horseradish; other guests tell the story of a unique dinner at the Amsterdam Royal Palace in 2017, where they celebrated with King Willem-Alexander his 50th birthday.
Ismahan and Siham talk about Eid al-Fitr, which marks the end of the month-long fasting during Ramadan, while culinary expert Janny van der Heijden demonstrates how she sets her table during Christmas.
Van der Heijden has a passion for porcelain tableware that she developed from a young age. As she explains in one of the recordings: "As a child, I found nothing more fun than looking for dishes at all kinds of celebrayions. I found that some things tasted better on a matching plate. For example, my aunt's stamppot tasted better on a plate with a hunting scene."
Van der Heijden also highlights in her recordings that the most important ingredient at a party is not what you eat, but warmth, the joy of being together. "Often the idea of celebration is equated with abundance," she remarks, "but the essence of that abundance stands for me in sharing things."
Interactive elements have also been added to the exhibition: visitors can share their best party experiences on a door to a student's room, set a royal table, create their own nativity scene and take an over-the-top selfie in the festive photobooth.
The ceramics on display vary, and also include in the section dedicated to weddings some wonderfully kitsch statuines and vases used to decorate a giant replica of a wedding cake.
The rarest piece in the exhibition is a dish from around 1530: from Iznik, in Turkey, the dish features blue and turquoise decorations of grape vines and flowers.
The peculiarity about this dish is that it is the largest Iznik dish with grape motif known worldwide. The piece was purchased by the Ottema-Kingma Foundation from Sotheby's in London and after this even it will enter the permanent collection of the museum.
The object illustrates the interaction between China and the Middle East: the decoration on the dish imitates the Chinese blue-white porcelain from the Ming dynasty (1368-1644). Much of this porcelain came into the Middle East through trade and was an important source of inspiration for ceramics in Persia (now Iran) and the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey and Syria).
There is a difference between this dish and the original ones that inspired it: in this case the grapes are recreated in reverse, as if they were mirrored. That's probably because the decoration of Chinese porcelain were drawn on a stencil by craftsmen at the Ottoman court and then used for the decoration of dishes in Iznik. In this copy, the ceramic painters combined the cobalt blue with turquoise, a characteristic combination that was applied to Iznik ceramics from the 16th century.
The exhibition also features works by contemporary ceramic artists such as Neha Kudchadkar, Sharon van Overmeiren, Odette Muijsers (her ceramic replicas of sweets in a pastel palette are used to perfectly illustrate a children's party) and South Korean designer Yoon Seok-hyeon, who came up with a sustainable alternative to the toxic glaze on ceramic pieces from his native country (glazed ceramic is usually not recyclable and often ends in the landfill).
To accompany the event the museum also published a cookbook with special recipes by renowned chefs, food writers and bakers, inspired by the museum's tableware collection (the volume is available from the museum shop and webshop).
The point behind this exhibition remains creating a friendly atmosphere, acknowledging the culture of celebration and discovering other cultures. This is something we should remember as Christmas is approaching and some of us may be dreading the usual family dinner or reunion.
In case you do, remember to ignore comments about the risqué colour of your lipstick, your new hairstyle, the fact that you have lost/put on weight, your perilously high heels, the partner you dumped/acquired this year, and other assorted private crimes you may have committed throughout the year according to your relatives, just go Zen and ignore them. It is indeed not worth jeopardising household harmony for just a few hours. So enjoy the feast, enjoy the food and maybe see if the tableware in front of you may bring back happy memories from your childhood.
Image credits for this post
1. "Celebrate! From Passover and Keti Koti to Carnival and Diwali" campaign image
2 - 3. Ceramic artwork by Odette Muijsers, 2022
4 - 11. "Celebrate! From Passover and Keti Koti to Carnival and Diwali" at the Princessehof National Museum of Ceramics, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands. Photo: Ruben van Vliet
12 - 13. Dish with grapes and flower branches and waves, ca. 1530. Keramiekmuseum Princessehof, Leeuwarden, on loan from the Ottema-Kingma Foundation. Photo Courtesy of Sotheby's
14 - 15. Studio Job and Koninklijke Tichelaar Makkum, Biscuit Gold, 2007, porcelain. From the collection of the Keramiekmuseum Princessehof, Leeuwarden, acquired with the support of the Mondriaan Fund. Foto: Thomas Nondh Jansen.
16. "Celebrate! From Passover and Keti Koti to Carnival and Diwali" campaign image. Photo: Maarten van der Wal
Comments