The Netherlands Sound and Vision Institute hosts the national media archive of the Netherlands. The archive also includes over 40,000 original political cartoons. Part of the mission of the Institute is to find new ways to use the contents of the archive.

One way to do this is to open up the archive to creative professionals. A lot of the cartoons in the archive can be used because their copyright has expired and they are now in the public domain. We developed a workshop for art academy students, teaching them how to use cartoons from the late 19th and early 20th century to create GIF animations that comment on issues in our time.

The language of cartoons isn’t just universal across borders and languages, it is also universal through time. Cartoons from 100 years ago use the same language as cartoons from today, and comment on similar issues such as inept politicians, power abuse and injustice.

The first workshop took place on Friday May 24 at the AKV|St. Joost in Breda. Here below you can see some of the results:

Albert Hahn.                                                                

Albert Hahn + Julia Windt.

Albert Hahn, 1908.

Albert Hahn + Noortje Schuurs.

Albert Hahn.

Albert Hahn + Cheyene Goudswaard. The AIVD is the Dutch secret service.