Food for Thought

Van Lohuizen’s native country The Netherlands, a small country in Western Europe, is the second largest exporter in the world of agricultural products, right after the United States, producing a wide range of products, such as potatoes, cauliflowers, seeds, tomatoes, dairy and meat. These large-scale food imports and exports inspired Van Lohuizen to investigate the industrial chain in the United States of America, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kenya, and China. 

Food for Thought 

Van Lohuizen managed to be a “fly on the wall” and follow the entire industry responsible for global food production, from calf slaughterhouses to vegetable seed producers, from mega-ships carrying soy and corn for cattle feed to ports around the world to onions from the Netherlands for Western Africa and elsewhere. He captured all this through photography, film, and drone footage and had unprecedented access. 

The exhibition Food for Thought was extended and is now on show in the National Maritime Museum in Amsterdam (NL) until January 5th, 2025. The award-winning design of the exhibition by Kummer & Herrman includes spectacular projections with video, photography, and sound, featuring the countries Van Lohuizen visited. The informational texts and large panels with data contextualize the work with comprehensive facts and figures and are presented within an industrial framework of reusable shelving units from the food- and packaging industry. 

Education 

Food for Thought has a high educational value, sharing an important story in an immersive, illustrative, comprehensive, and to-the-point manner. The exhibition invites the viewers to engage with the spatial and interactive experience and consider their relationship to the topic. 

It also provides ample opportunities to create educational programs for middle and high school students and college and university students alike, as well as public programming. We work together with local and global farmers, industry leaders, activists, scientists, media, and policy makers from our vast network to create an engaging side program with talks, panels, and other events. 

Partners 

The exhibition was developed by the National Maritime Museum in Amsterdam and NOOR Images and designed by Kummer & Herrman. The exhibition provides a unique opportunity for an exchange with our extended network to encourage, strengthen, and celebrate cultural, diplomatic, and economic relations. The book ‘Food for Thought’ by Kadir van Lohuizen, published by NOOR and Lannoo Publishers and designed by Kummer & Herrman, accompanies the exhibition and provides additional information. Van Lohuizen also made a TV series about the global food system for the Dutch broadcaster VPRO, also titled ‘Food for Thought’. 

Kadir van Lohuizen 

Photographer and filmmaker Kadir van Lohuizen (1963) has worked as a photojournalist for national and international media for decades and has won several awards. Van Lohuizen is represented in the contemporary art market by ‘Vriend van Bavink’ Gallery and his work is part of several major museum collections, such as the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, the Rijksmuseum, and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. The National Maritime Museum previously worked with Kadir van Lohuizen for the exhibition Rising Tide in 2019, which has since traveled to New York, San Diego, and Jakarta.  

Van Lohuizen has also documented various conflicts in Africa and elsewhere around the world, but he is probably best known for his long-running projects on the seven world rivers, the consequences of rising sea levels, the diamond industry, migration in North and South America, and the (poor) ways in which six megacities deal with their waste. His photo series on trash in world cities won him a World Press Photo Award in 2018. He also won the Silver Camera in 1994, 1997 and 2001.  

Van Lohuizen has won many prizes and awards in photojournalism and is co-founder of NOOR Images. In 2000 and 2002, he was a member of the jury in the World Press Photo competition, and until recently he was a member of the World Press Photo Foundation’s Supervisory Board. Van Lohuizen is a frequent speaker and works as a photography teacher. He lives in Amsterdam. 

Travelling exhibition 

Are you interested in presenting Food for Thought in your institution? We offer a toolkit consisting of a fully designed exhibition that is flexible, adaptable to any space and can be produced locally. 

Contact

For more information, please contact Nienke van der Wal at nvdwal@hetscheepvaartmuseum.nl.