The Europeans : Our ancestral home

The Europeans is a ten-year quest to find the contemporary European at a time when Europe is struggling. Growing nationalism and populism are reviving old ghosts. Authoritarian regimes are on the rise and the political dream of a united and peaceful Europe is proving increasingly fragile.

In the decade to 2030, Van Bruggen and Hornstra will document 20 regions in Europe. Each period spent in one of these regions culminates with an exhibition and the launch of a publication of the same name in the place where the work was made. This publication is the result of a period spent in a region entitled ‘Our Ancestral Home’, somewhere in Europe.

‘Our Ancestral Home’ is the story of a stunningly beautiful region of Europe where the locals cherish their traditions, speak a mysterious language and pass down the picturesque houses and farms from generation to generation. That’s how it has always been. But tourists and wealthy urbanites have now discovered the region, and the original inhabitants are succumbing to the lure of the exorbitant amounts that outsiders are willing to pay for a rural retreat. “We have sold our country,” activists lament. But who can resist the laws of capitalism?

This catalogue is published on the occasion of the exhibition at the Station V Bayonne in July & August 2022.