HANS LOOIJEN
Everyone is different, everyone experiences challenges and problems.
Hans Looijen, former CEO of Stichting Dolhuys and responsible for the Museum of the Mind, has played a key role in highlighting outsider art in Dutch cultural institutions. Through his dedication, he has contributed to the growth of the museum collection, acquiring approximately 1,400 works with private support. His efforts were rewarded with the European Museum of the Year Award in 2022, recognizing the Museum of the Mind as a pioneering institution for outsider art. The Museum of the Mind is a museum about the strength and vulnerability of your own mind and that of another. The museum is interested in the artwork between your ears.
Open for discussion
My mother was a patient. That was very difficult because she had decided not to talk about it, yet she experienced very exuberant or, conversely, very dark periods. That made helping her difficult. That is why I attach great importance to making mental health a topic of discussion through art and culture. We all have a mind and experience strength, success, adversity, illness, or other major obstacles in our lives. Our society must be attuned to this, so that we can all participate and function in a way that allows us to be of value and to be heard and seen.
Balance
Our mind is such an individual thing that there is no single 'trick' to dealing with stress. For
Personally, I try to maintain a balance between what I can contribute to the collective, the
society and the museum, and what I call 'energy conservation,' including recharging
and being there for the people I cherish and who, in turn, 'carry' me. I also enjoy
walking across estates and in the forest.
Inspiration
I have been immersed in comparative cultural studies since a young age. I learn from it, and it often gives me new perspectives. Different cultures teach me that there are many possible answers to the question of 'how to live'. I am particularly fascinated by the cultures of Mesoamerica. I also find inventive ways of explaining 'the how' of life, and objects that express how the world might be structured, fascinating. This also greatly appeals to me in outsider art, art that is still too often placed outside the cultural canon because the artists work from their inner world and pay no attention to established art movements. Personally, music also touches me, increasingly Baroque; I can be truly moved by it. Even though the lyrics are often religiously oriented—and I am certainly not—the beauty and emotional expression can inspire me enormously.
Outsider art
Shinichi Sawada’s ceramic creatures are so distinctive, so unique, and yet you immediately recognize his Japanese background in them. At the same time, his work also evokes an ancient culture, as if they were archaeological finds. Through his work, I realized that there can truly be a distinct language in which an artist expresses themselves, a language that we sometimes struggle to understand. Sawada does not rationalize his work, explains nothing, and yet I can discern an inner world from it. For me, that was truly a kind of key to understanding the working methods of artists who create outsider art—art that still too often falls outside the spotlight. I want to shine a full light on this, so that we include these works in our understanding of what art is. The makers do not need to change; quite the opposite! We, the public, must look at all art production with an open mind.
Snapshot
Everyone is different; everyone experiences challenges and problems. Know and believe that no matter how difficult things are for you right now, no matter how dark your world is at this moment, your current state of being reflects your current feelings. In that sense, it is also a snapshot. Living in the present is wonderful when everything is going well, but difficult when it isn't. Can you manage to 'zoom out' a little? That might soon provide you with the beginning of a (slightly) different perspective. I wish that for you!
