Document Nederland: Stacii Samidin photographs The Café

Almost every club, group or subculture has its own ‘hangout’ in the form of a cafe or bar. There’s the truckers’ cafe, the cafe for after church, the student cafe, the local sports bar, to name but a few. The interior, the atmosphere and the clientele may differ widely, but everybody goes there for the same reasons: for social contact, recreation and relaxation.

Stacii Samidin was born in 1987 and made his name with ‘Societies’, a series of photographs about subcultures including groups of young people and notorious gangs. He lived as a photographer among the tough street gangs of Los Angeles, and captured the hopeless existence of young people in the banlieues of French cities, families struggling to survive in Nairobi in one of the world’s largest slum areas, and criminals on the streets of Rotterdam.

The Rijksmuseum has been holding the annual Document Nederland exhibition since 1975, and each year a Dutch photographer is invited to focus on topical subjects in the social sphere. Previous series were commissioned from photographers such as Hans Aarsman in 1984, Dana Lixenberg in 2011 and Anoek Steketee in 2017.

This year the Rijksmuseum is holding the tenth annual Document Nederland Junior photography competition for secondary school students and, for the first time, students at vocational colleges! Submit your photo series for a chance to have your very own exhibition at the Rijksmuseum. The theme this year is ‘Cafe, clubhouse or canteen’.

Document Nederland runs from 12 October 2018 to 20 January 2019 at the Rijksmuseum.

Document Nederland Junior is made possible in part by Janivo Stichting.