WHAT?

 

My secret archive consists of 15 filing cabinets that I have put stickers on with the letters A up to O. Each filing cabinet contains an average of 30 folders or archive boxes. There are also two cabinets containing suspension files. All in all five drawers. And then there are low cabinets that have been given Roman numbers I up to VI. For the time being I ignore the green deck hand's chest, the Portuguese chest that contained the cans of sardines that were given to us during the Watersnoodramp (the Flood of 1953), and the random piles of things that are scattered around.

The most secret archive is, of course, in my head. I suspect that once in a while something from this secret archive indirectly reveals itself in my work.

Every now and again I'd like to take some items from their cupboards and show them to others. It is not so nice for all that material to be locked away for ever, anyway.

In what way should I incorporate the progress of time in this story? The filing cabinets still have the same stickers as before, but my life has changed dramatically since I typed the first sentence above. No, the most secret part of me remains secret. My inner world is only accessible to people who really know me really very well. And then only up to a certain point.

THE MOVIE CITY BORDER; LOST & FOUND
(26th October 2007; cabinet A)

THE EXTENSIVE CATALOGUE
(9th August 2007)

VACATION PHOTOALBUMS
(February 2005; cabinet E)

OLD SALES SLIPS
(3rd July 2002)

SUGAR BAGS
(29th August 2000; cabinet 1 of Izak)

BALCONY SCENES
(19/10/2000; in envelope on the green chest)

THE LOST ARCHIVE
( 21st April 2001)

THE RECOVERED ARCHIVE
(20th January 2002)

LEMMINGS
(29th October 2003, cabinet C)

MESSAGES FROM THE BASEMENT
(24th November 2002)

TIENGEMETEN AND THE TIME
(May 2010; cabinet D)

TIENGEMETEN, THE WEBSITE
(15th March 2004/2010)

 

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