MARLOUS

[ENGLISH TRANSLATION]

I'm Marlous, Marlous ++. You can address me by my first name. I've been a city dweller all my life.

I'm also very active in my own neighborhood in Bergen. I founded the residents'association. I was a leader in that until I joined the municipal council.

I've been an art lover my whole life, actually. I've done a little bit of painting myself, but I don't think I have any talent. But I'm very art-loving in the broadest sense of the word.

You'll find me engage with the arts daily or weekly. I listen to music daily. I'm at the Van Abbe Museum every week.

I regularly go to the movies and the theatres. Because, in my rational world—or at least that's how it feels—it offers me something, a different world that I need. To be present in this rational world and make a difference.

Because that means, to me, making my contribution to this society is very important.

This large red oil painting by Ori Ben Zeëv (that's the artist's name) was exhibited at the closing ceremony of the Grote Kunstuitlening (Great Art Lending) in Eindhoven. That was an organization that actively collected art and placed it in people's homes for about 30 years.

And that had to stop. So they exhibited their leftovers in the Witte Dame in Eindhoven, a beautiful, large factory building. And I walked in.

Yes, and this one said to me, "I belong with you." I love red very much, but there was a power and energy emanating from it that touched me deeply. I also started talking to them about this painting, because with every painting or art object I own, I really want to know much more, especially about the artist.

And then it turned out the artist was Israelite who worked in the Netherlands at the art academy in The Hague. Born in Jerusalem, but moved to the Netherlands at a young age, he experienced a turbulent period in his expressions, and that had to do with the Holocaust. You see it reflected in his work.

He needed to get this off his chest; it was locked up inside him. He mentions it too; several books have been written about him, but he also wrote a book himself, which he gave to me. Because when we met, it was as if we had known each other for a long time. I visited him in Amsterdam at his request.

We're also the same age. It was very strange. He’s truly Jewish. As am I, but I wasn't raised in Judaism, so to speak, very unusual.

The painting hangs prominently in the room, but it also needs space. And what I find remarkable is that he's an Israeli, whom, of course, we haven't seen or spoken to in recent years, but who is also now affected by global geopolitics, so to speak, and the conversation about whether or not to engage with an Israeli and a Palestinian. I think you simply need to keep scientists and artists together and maintain very open contact and communication, rather than simply having conversations in society about whether we want to be involved in something or not, or whether we support this and therefore not the other person.

I love people very much. I'm a people person. And I think people really need this.

I'm very happy that I can connect with all this, that my senses remain clear in this way, making me stay human in this world.