landbouwvoorlichting

Framing the Dutch Landscape

This project is a follow-up of the successful defence by Peter Veer of his doctoral thesis (Dutch title: Bewogen Lanschap) at the Faculty of the Humanities of the University of Amsterdam (UvA) on 18 Sept. 2020 in the research priority ‘Cultural Heritage’ in a match with the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, Hilversum.

The main corpus of this study about the filmpractises of the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture (1945-1985) is the collection of 533 historic dissemination films. Promotor was Prof. Dr. Frank P.I.M. van Vree (Media History, UvA). Co-promotors were Prof. Dr. R. (Rob) van der Laarse (Heritage and Memory Studies, UvA) and Prof. Dr. A. (Bert) Hogenkamp (Sound and Vision & Faculty of Arts, VU University Amsterdam). The films were part of the succesful gouvernement policy to change the traditional countryside in to a modern production landscape. The policy included land consolidation projects and intensive education, training and information campaigns. The collection films was used by the Rural Extension Service to instruct, give information and promote efficient working methods and modern ways of life on the farms. Bewogen landschap (2020) shows that changes in the mental and cultural domain are essential factors to implement structural transitions in agriculture and rural land use management. These historic film practices can be inspiring for the stuctural changes in agriculture in the next decades.

Parallel to the PhD research was a dissemination program about the heritage values of the modernist Post WW II landscapes conducted by the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands.