Sofie's Favorites
BredaPhoto Ambassadors 2026
You step into the space and are immediately surrounded by stories. At a glance, you can take in the sheer scale of it all. You can look through and around the photographs, which are displayed in a neon-yellow structure. No story exists on its own – everything is part of the same context of institutional violence, loss and the plea for recognition. That is what makes it so powerful.
The project was created collaboratively with the community of survivors’ relatives. This is where connection and resilience come through so beautifully. Together to remember, together to mobilise, together to keep these stories alive. Museum of Memory against Impunity is almost impossible to take in all at once. I’ll definitely be coming back for another visit.
Connection is also at the heart of this project. Outside, just behind the station on Speelhuislaan, you walk among these stories. The photographs are life-sized, making it feel as though you are stepping right into people’s homes. Each image shows a living room: people sitting together on the sofa, children playing at the table. We meet newcomers and Breda residents who have connected through Buddy to Buddy.
What I love about this project is how art captures something so everyday: people meeting one another and making space for someone else. The photographs show what can happen when you take that first step. On a small scale, simply within your own community.
Step into the darkened space and take off your shoes. Experiencing this work immediately feels different. In front of you are life-size, enlarged photographs spread throughout the room. You can’t simply walk past them. You have to move through them. With your feet on the ground, you’re invited not only to look, but to fully immerse yourself in the work.
You see shipwrecks, the ocean and images that reference the colonial history of Sāmoa. Kihara connects this history to the broader story of European and American imperialism, and to the ways in which that history continues to shape the present.
Perhaps that is why this work feels so fitting in this particular space. The Koepel also carries its own history: a former prison and women’s prison, a place where stories and lives have been stored, recorded and sometimes hidden. The work makes me reflect on our own history, too. Who decides what is preserved? Which stories make it into our archives, which disappear, and what story does that leave us with?
