Draak van het wit

About this book

When does fact turn to fiction, past to present, imagination to concrete matter? It is the thread through the panoramic oeuvre of photographer Guus Rijven (The Hague, 1947). Over the past years, Rijven has been travelling to Nagasaki, Japan, for a major research project. There, at times as a strolling street photographer, at other times as a conceptual artist, he explored the ties between the modern city and the artificial isle of Deshima, which, for centuries, served as the only gap through which knowledge and riches could flow from hermetically sealed feudal Japan. 'The dragon of the white' is a solo exhibition by a photographer with a sharp eye for the moment and for detail, who does not shy away from the mystery of what was, is and shall become. Rijven has also documented, as factually as possible, depots at museums in Nagasaki, Leiden and The Hague, containing that which was excavated from the soil of Deshima as well as what the Dutch tradesmen brought home with them in terms of 'depots' during the seventeenth century. So ensues a collection of testimonials and sometimes clashing rest fragments, the combination of which form something complete and new. Exhibition: De Ketelfactory, Schiedam, The Netherlands (19.09.- 20.12.2020).