Het fotorolletje van Jutta Koolhof
This summer - we write 1984 - marks the 25th anniversary of the drilling of the Slochteren natural gas field, also known as the Groningen field. Without that event, there would be no Vrijstaat today, and this area would not have been so irrevocably economically decarbonized. (FROM 'IN THE SLOCHTER FREE STATE' , P. 1)
Travel journalist Jutta Koolhof (b. 1954) visited the Slochter Vrijstaat in the early 1980s. She reports on that visit in the book “In the Slochter Vrijstaat,” published in 1984. This exhibition features photographs she took during her tour of the Free State. They give a good picture of the country at that time. The photographs are accompanied by snippets from the book. The book was republished on the initiative of Noorderlicht and is for sale. You can also get a bicycle route map that takes you past the various locations Koolhof describes in her book.
About the book
In the Slochter Vrijstaat is an account of Amsterdam travel journalist Jutta Koolhof’s 1984 visit to the young nation. Richly illustrated, playful, and humorous, but at the same time from a serious starting point that indirectly comments on our own reality. It questions what would have happened if this special area east of Groningen had taken matters into its own hands, and fuels a more powerful picture of a region that has too often been dismissed as “periphery” and exploited for the welfare and prosperity of the rest of the Netherlands. Now that attention on the natural gas extraction issue has somewhat subsided after the fall of Rutte IV, In the Slochter Vrijstaat has good timing.
In the Slochter Vrijstaat is a publication of Noorderlicht in cooperation with BPD Cultuurfonds and Uitgeverij Palmslag. In the Slochter Vrijstaat is part of the multi-year program Renewed Energy, a collaboration between Noorderlicht and BPD Culture Fund. With this project they want to contribute to a respectful and just treatment of the soon-to-be former natural gas extraction area and its inhabitants.