PUBLISHED

The Corona scheme Medewerkers Colleciebeleid was a temporary scheme and was financed from the government's support package for the cultural sector in response to Covid-19.

SAMA's street art collection, counting ca. 300 works, consists of existing street art in public space and street art that has been demolished or removed and which has been digitally documented. Because street art is in principle temporary in nature, the digital component of the collection is an extremely important one. It has been SAMA's wish for some time to make the collection digitally available and accessible in a professional manner. The aim is to safeguard the collection for the future, present it to online visitors and make it available to researchers. Due to the pandemic, as a result of which physical audiences are partly shifting to digital visitors, the need for this has become even more clear. Thanks to a grant awarded by the national Mondriaan Fund, my position at SAMA has been made possible for a period of approximately one and a half years to design and embed a new collection policy.

SAMA board of trustees have successfully received this funding in order to create the part-time contract position of Collection Manager.

Leonie Wingen was hired for the term of  2021-2023. As Collection Manager, her task in the coming period is to design a collection policy aimed at research and development. She will research how we can best unlock the collection using new media, such as Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR).

"In the absence of standardized or exemplary guidelines in this area, we hope to develop a working method that sets an example for other institutions working with street art. Fully digital access to the collection, using new techniques, is a lengthy process, but in the form of pilots results will be achieved more quickly that the public can use. I will also set up the digital registration system in such a way that the works of art are associated with the collection of individual objects that have yet to be registered, such as stencils, sketches and stickers. In doing so, I will investigate how we can document the social context of the works of art in context. The majority of the collection has been created in a participative way, which makes the collection a valuable source of information about the community in Amsterdam Nieuw-West, about which little has been documented at heritage institutions." Leonie Wingen

The collection also tells about the area developments and many works of art address political and social issues that play a role on a global level, such as human rights, online privacy, capitalism and ecological justice. In a rapidly changing society, SAMA's collection tells stories that should not be forgotten. Because SAMA originated as a grassroots initiative as part of the local community, its own history and the social impact that SAMA has on the neighbourhood also contributes to the story of the community.