From 19 March to 3 October 2021, Museum Het Schip presents the art project 'Limitless Content' in collaboration with the RCE (Netherlands Cultural Heritage Agency) and the course Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage, specialising in Contemporary Art, at the Universiteit van Amsterdam.
This art project was initiated in 1983 by the Dutch Art Foundation (NKS). Designer John den Besten designed twelve transparent suitcases, after which artists throughout the country were called upon to develop ideas for filling these suitcases. The overarching theme was 'The Journey'. The artists were limited by the size and parallelogram shape of the case, and the materials the case was made of (a welded metal frame and transparent plastic foil).
Twelve artists were chosen from 100 submissions and commissioned to fill a suitcase: Klaus Peter Boegel, Boudewijn Corstiaensen, Michael Gibbs, Theo van de Goor, Heinz Georg Holtappels, Ronald in 't Hout, Ko de Jonge, Wijo Koek, Bob Lens, Johan Oskam, Flavio Pons and Roel QoQo.
The cases of Limitless Content are part of the national collection managed by the RCE. In August 2019 the twelve suitcases were transferred to the Ateliergebouw in Amsterdam for educational purposes. First-year master's students from the Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Heritage programme (specialisation Contemporary Art) at the University of Amsterdam were asked to conserve and restore the twelve suitcases of Limitless Content as part of their first-year programme. The aim was to conserve the artworks to a degree of stability suitable for future exhibitions, so that their physical integrity would be preserved and the original intentions of the artists could be made clear to the public: ... no artist works without luggage, consisting of material, tangible in the form of memories, desires, ideas and ideals.
The transparent suitcases full of memories, desires, ideas and ideals will be exhibited in the post office of Museum Het Schip, where they will be placed in an entourage of postal items that have just arrived or are about to leave. You can see the exhibition during the visit of the post office.
In May 2021, the RCE published (in Dutch) an extensive article about the project in the Journal of the Cultural Heritage Agency.
