Meet the alumni on the shortlist for the Heritage Intervention Award

Maiko Sato is a museum educator from Japan. “Throughout my career, my mission has been to explore how museums can positively contribute to a society where everyone can coexist and feel included, regardless of their background.”

Until 2021, Sato worked at the Contemporary Art Centre of Art Tower Mito in Japan. Her focus was on engaging communities and building bridges between them through art appreciation programs, workshops, and training for volunteer guides. “One of the highlights was an art appreciation program I worked on for both blind and sighted participants. Mr. Shiratori, a blind man who started this program with us, later became the subject of a book and a documentary titled Blind Shiratori’s Eyes for Art, in which I also appear.”

Josje-Marie Vrolijk has nearly three decades of experience in the cultural sector as a graphic and multidisciplinary designer. With her fresh master’s degree (cum laude) in Museum and Heritage Studies from the Reinwardt Academy, she aims to realise her long-held wish to work with natural and cultural history museum collections. She is fascinated by the context in which form emerges, whether it concerns matter, life forms, or artefacts. Nature and culture are, for her, inextricably linked. Engaging museum visitors with biodiversity loss and climate change is her particular focus.

In her final thesis, ‘Engaging museum visitors with the biodiversity crisis through a natural history collection’, she investigates how natural history museums can enhance the public's understanding of biodiversity and encourage care for nature through their exhibitions. She connects academic theory on the human-nature relationship and the green gap between dream and action to museum practice, with an analysis of ten museums and a case study at Naturalis Biodiversity Center about an exhibition in development on Suriname. In this, she explores the challenges Naturalis faces in realising its ambition to become a ‘change agent’ in a biodiversity-positive society. 

LinkedIn Josje-Marie

During her studies at the Reinwardt Academy, Merel van Buren developed a strong interest in the fields of Programming and Public Engagement: “I’m especially fascinated by personal stories. They captivate me because they serve as connectors between communities, times, and places. Personal stories add nuance to heritage and make it more accessible to a wide audience.”

For her graduation research at the Province of Utrecht, she explored how personal stories can connect the past, present, and future of a market garden located within the defense zone of the Dutch Waterlines. This research resulted in the podcast Tussen de Tuinen, which is available on Spotify. “During the creative process, I got to know different generations of gardeners who shared their personal stories with me. I still consider that incredibly valuable.”

Merel is currently traveling through South America and staying in Peru. “After this journey, filled with new cultural experiences, I hope to start working in the cultural sector, specifically within the field of Programming and Public Engagement.”

LinkedIn Merel

Fleur van Stratum obtained her bachelor’s degree in Cultural Heritage from the Reinwardt Academy last summer, specializing in collection management. She is currently working as a collection manager at the Maritime Museum Rotterdam. “In this position, I am responsible for managing the museum’s collection and am involved in the developments surrounding the future Rotterdam Collection Centre (CCR).”

During her graduation period, Fleur interned at the Noordbrabants Museum, where she conducted research under the supervision of Ingrid Sonderen on the re-packing of the museum’s flat textile collection. “This involved not only carrying out research but also developing a re-packing strategy tailored to the specific needs of the Noordbrabants Museum.” Based on this research, she created a set of information cards that provide step-by-step visual and practical instructions for the packing process. “The information cards were developed not only for the Noordbrabants Museum but also for small and medium-sized institutions with a partial textile collection.”

Since the age of thirteen, Arthur Veys has been connected to the AHK; at that time, he attended the youth preparatory program of the Jazz Department at the Conservatorium alongside secondary school. “From an early age, I was interested in music, culture, and history. After working as a music producer for a while, I ended up at the Reinwardt Academy, where these elements — both tangible and intangible — came together. Especially through the Schietbaan pilot at the Marineterrein and the minor project with Henk Schiffmacher, I found my place within the heritage field more and more.”

In his graduation year, Veys discovered that he was particularly interested in the use and management of collections on a higher, more abstract level. “The Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (RCE) was an ideal internship location for that. Since September 1, I have returned to the movable heritage department as a junior advisor.”