Cultural Fragments
ILJA SIMONS
Artist. Sociologist. Bricoleur.
Research as Bricolage
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​I analyse cultural life the way I create a collage: by tracing fragments such as images, rituals, performances, stories and memories. My research examines how these are assembled into meaning, identity and community across events, heritage contexts and digital publics. Each project below is a fragment of that larger inquiry.
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The Ritual of Visibility
Redhead Days
How a physical trait becomes the foundation for a global community, and what this reveals about interaction rituals and collective effervescence in a network society.
Performing the Extraordinary
Elfia
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Fantasy, costumes and the fluid boundaries between reality and imagination. How participants perform identity in temporary, ritualistic spaces.
From Stigma to Pride
Kaya Kaya, Curaçao
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How collective storytelling and artistic practices reclaim a neighbourhood's story. Narrative placemaking and community-led transformation in Otrobanda, Willemstad.
Narrative Plurality
Historic Bridgetown, Barbados
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How dominant heritage storyworlds are negotiated, contested and expanded through local voices and intangible heritage.
Community in Formation
Hybrid Communities
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Events are defined by time and space, but the communities they generate are not. How online and offline practices interweave before, during and after an event to construct lasting hybrid communities.
The DIY network
Incubate
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Underground culture, non-linear networks and the bricoleur spirit. How an experimental festival creates a temporary third space for independent culture.
Murals as Living Stories
Blind Walls Gallery, Breda
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How murals function as living carriers of local heritage, and whose stories they make visible. A study of co-creative processes, representation and narrative placemaking in the urban fabric.
Opening Pandora’s Box
Power & Empowerment in Community-Based Tourism
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Community-based tourism promises empowerment, but once the box is open, the consequences are unpredictable. An exploration of power, seduction and hope in tourism development.
The Fearful Wolf
Sacred Stories and Silent Voices
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Every story has a silent voice. On fiction as a research method, and what Little Red Riding Hood can teach us about discourse, exclusion and the stories we never question.