A summer of historical reflection. That is what Noorderlicht, the platform for lens-based media and photography, offers to its public. It hits pause on the easy unseriousness of summer for a moment and takes us on a journey to discover a side of Northern Dutch history that has long been left in the dark. The What Knots Knot Knots exhibition brings together eight artists who have spent months digging through the archives and speaking with communities across the northern Netherlands, leaving no stone unturned.

It has found a way to explore how the region’s colonial past continues to shape our lives using the quiet strength of art. While conversations about Dutch colonial history often revolve around Amsterdam and Rotterdam, What Knots Knot Knots shifts its focus northwards, uncovering stories connected to the VOC, the transatlantic slave trade, migration, and cultural memory, and how they continue to reverberate into the present.

Not only does the exhibition bring together eight mesmerising artists, but it also resists focusing on a single moment in time, instead tying together a range of stories spanning centuries. The name stems from a phrase by Donna Haraway: “it matters what knots knot knots.” Signifying that the stories we choose reveal how interconnected history is in shaping our future. In What Knots Knot Knots, overlooked archives, personal memories, and contemporary artistic responses are brought into the light, reshaping how the North is seen and all that has been left unsaid.

Join us in unraveling the knots of long-overlooked histories by visiting the exhibition, on view from 26 June to 30 August.