Visiting Amsterdam for a month revived my creativity and awareness of experiencing the world around me. Engaging with the Dutch music scene allowed me to engage with Dutch culture in a new way as a creative. When creating a project reflecting on this time, a song seemed like the perfect medium as it reflects my growth as a creative in exploring new mediums. Through this project, titled Revived in Amsterdam, I aimed to translate the twists and turns of my experience sonically by creating unexpected drops and tone shifts.
The song uses samples from the Re:Vive project from The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision. The samples heard include recordings taken all around Amsterdam, including the Rijksmuseum, Vondelpark, the Oudekerk, and Amsterdam Centraal Station. These sounds are layered with instruments inspired by Dutch House and Techno music I would listen to throughout the trip.
When reflecting on my experiences in the Netherlands this summer, one of the largest takeaways I took from my experiences studying decolonization within the cultural heritage sector is that the solution to changing institutions and culture is creation. Creating new institutional structures, creating space for new narratives, creating art, creating films, creating music, creating poetry, and more are all needed for long lasting and sustainable change and innovation, which is done through not only having an idea but also the execution of an idea. My song is a small contribution to artistic intervention to revitalize sound archives and change the ways in which the past, present, and future can be experienced and heard.