"In 1975 and 1976 I worked at the Amsterdam sleep-in, then on the Rozengracht, just around the corner of my house. The sleep-in was an initiative of the city after it forbade young tourists to sleep in the Vondelpark open air. For a few guilders they could now get a place with a bunk bed, some simple foodstuffs and light alcoholic beverages. Their marihuana or hash (Amsterdam's main attraction, both then and now for these kids) they had to get elsewhere but nobody bothered them if they wanted to smoke it in the sleep-in.
In 1977, I didn't work there anymore but regularly visited friends who did still work there. One day I shot some rolls of B&W film, portraying this tourist generation: too late for the hippy generation of the sixties, too early for the punk generation of the future."
After having these shots developed, Ard Hesselink never printed these pictures. "So when I rediscovered them in my negatives collection recently they were totally new to me. Needless to say, I was surprised at what I found."
In 1977, I didn't work there anymore but regularly visited friends who did still work there. One day I shot some rolls of B&W film, portraying this tourist generation: too late for the hippy generation of the sixties, too early for the punk generation of the future."
After having these shots developed, Ard Hesselink never printed these pictures. "So when I rediscovered them in my negatives collection recently they were totally new to me. Needless to say, I was surprised at what I found."
Language translation lesson for today:
ReplyDeleteDutch: "sleep-in"
English: "flop-house"
OMG me and my friend (two girls from Finland) spent some nights in there in summer 1976, met some nice people and experienced things, beautiful memories!
ReplyDelete