Multiple times a day the Vas Dias drawbridge opens for ships to pass. The bell rings, the barriers go down, the bridge deck joints upwards, and those who stand with their backs to the square which hosts the Dockworker statue, read a written recollection of a tumultuous and important period in the history of Amsterdam.
The poem Wibautotisme by Kristian Kanstadt is written in 1980 after the opening of the metro line, as a denouncement of the destruction of the Weesper- and Nieuwmarkt neighbourhood which the project caused.
Karim Hashem (1954) designed the unique, rather cryptic, typography. You have to take your time, find the right distance and point of view, to decipher what exactly is written under the bridge. Wibautotisme invites you to stand still, to look from different angles and perspectives.
Karim Hashem was a graphic designer who made applied graphic art around the 1980s: newspapers, posters, flyers and programs that fought against the demolition of the city and for squatting movements. In 1979 he drew a circle with an arrow across it with a white felt tip pen, and this is how the squatting symbol originated.
