OVER|ONDER|HOUD

Parks as Living Histories: Honoring Maintenance and Gardeners in Amsterdam

Parks are an indispensable asset to the city. They are not only spaces we pass through daily but also places where history is honoured, represented, and remembered. Like history itself, parks are living stories, constantly evolving. Monuments, on the other hand, mark what the city chooses to preserve and celebrate as cultural heritage. They symbolise what holds enduring significance. In Amsterdam’s parks, we find monuments dedicated to figures such as writer Joost van den Vondel, the victims of the execution site Rozenoord, and physician Samuel Sarphati. Their importance has been recognized for generations. Yet, something is missing from this landscape of remembrance: a tribute to the gardeners who bring these parks to life. These individuals know, nurture, and care for the parks, yet their contributions often remain invisible. 

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OVER|ONDER|HOUD: A Monument for Maintenance

Through OVER|ONDER|HOUD (MAINTAIN|SUSTAIN), KETTER&Co is creating a monument dedicated to maintenance—a tribute to what often goes unnoticed in a society focused on innovation and progress. This monument honours gardeners and is developed in collaboration with three dedicated gardeners from Amsterdam-Zuid: Nicole de Rop, Claus Schaapman, and Luis Nobre Canha. Their intimate knowledge of and connection to the parks they care for—Sarphatipark, Vondelpark, and Amstelpark—will be made visible by incorporating their personal insights as annotations within the park landscapes. The result is a monument that captures and shares the gardeners’ philosophies, deep park knowledge, and love for their work in a tangible and sharable way. 

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A Journey Through the Parks
The monuments are the outcome of guided walks with the gardeners through the parks they tend. Accompanied by cultural, park, and garden historian Erik de Jong, the gardeners led KETTER&Co to significant, beautiful, and poignant locations. The experiences and insights from these walks will be shared with the public through a three-part podcast series of the same name, alongside the monuments themselves. 

 

Both the monuments and the podcast series will debut in 2025.

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This project is made possible with support from the Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, Het Amsterdamsche Fonds, Cultuurfonds, Fonds voor Zuid, Iona Stichting, and Stadsdeel Zuid.