Make room for culture

When dark history turns.

Park Sonsbeek and the Sonsbeek exhibition both arise out of war. The park itself is build by a baron how earned his money with his mercenary army. While the exhibition started just after WWII to give the heavily damaged city of Arnhem a new allure.

The park that once was a battleground is now the place for leisure, play and culture.

In “Make room for culture” Jasper Nouws is taking the iconic atomic bomb as example for the ending of war and the beginning of play and culture. A process that literally took place in park Sonsbeek. But over generations these memories are slowly fading.

Many places in the world have had a same kind of transition. Places where terrible events happened are now places where monuments, parks and museums are. And let's hope it happens quickly to all the trouble spots of today.

The bomb is a copy of the “fat man” bomb. The atomic bomb that was detonated over the Japanese city of Nagasaki by the United States on 9 August 1945.

The bomb is completely constructed of wood from park Sonsbeek. Consisting beech, stone beech, oak and maple with an oil finish. During the processing of the wood different WWII shards were encountered. The bomb stands on two springs and a thick plate of steel.

The work is included in a private collection