‘How will we live together’ is the theme for the 2021 Venice Biennale. That’s exactly what I was wondering when walking with my family through the little streets and over dozens of bridges in Venice. I saw construction workers carrying their bricks and mortar over water, i saw transporters unloading…

On World Oceans Day (8th of June) people around the world celebrate and take action for our shared ocean, world’s largest source of life. This year it also marks the start of the 30x30 campaign: protecting 30% of the ocean by 2030, which is what scientists believe we need to…

Onze kinderen zitten alweer een paar weken vastgekluisterd aan hun schermen. De scholen zijn dicht, stageplaatsen staan op de tocht en de opstap naar een startersfunctie is moeilijker geworden. Ook de sportavond zit op slot. Zo leggen we steeds meer de ontwikkeling van onze kinderen aan banden. …

Twinning towns are known to be arrangements between two cities to foster friendship and understanding of other cultures. They often symbolise shared cultures and values such as between two port cities who have links through a common history, in good and bad times. In recent years, twinning arrangements are perceived…

Monet, Grand dock at Le Havre (1872) 2020 is a year that will stay in our memories for a long time. Not so much for the pandemic, more for how it forced us to adapt to a new reality. The second half of the 19th century was a time when…

Slow food, slow fashion, slow travel. What about slow transport, does that make sense in our superfast 24/7 economy? Having been working and studying international transport for over 25 years, slow transport is the latest upcoming trend of the industry. Counterintuitively it doesn’t make sense to take it slow in…

The climate strikes on the streets in cities across the world, make me remind one of the best books I read in my teenage years. ‘Crusade in Jeans’ blends a fictional story with the long-standing story of the children’s crusades of the Middle Ages in Europe. The book follows the…

Kruistocht in Spijkerbroek, wie heeft het boek niet gelezen in zijn of haar tienertijd. Na al die berichten in de media realiseer ik me, dat de kinderen van onze tijd hun eigen kruistocht lopen. Er is tenminste één groot verschil: deze strijders voor klimaatactie hoeven niet naar de Middellandse Zee…

A girl sits and strikes on the sidewalk after the Summer holidays and shows the world that she is fed up. Her future goes to waste because we do nothing about climate change. Just a news flash from August of last year. Ah, no one will talk about it tomorrow…