Our preparations for our VERGEET ME NIET investigation began with multiple map drawings and a lovely flyer This map above was our final schema for the day.

This project was inspired by the Supernatural Drama film _Afterlife_ (Wandafuru raifu or Wonderful Life - Japan, 2001)

Part scripted, part documentary, the film brings up questions of reality and memory, forcing the audience to contemplate the question themselves.

At first we were a overwhelmed withe the response from the Gouda, since we were not expecting so many active participants

This included some school kids interviewing Vivianne about her perspective on the war in Iraq.

We asked people to tell us about a memory in relation to a location or place in Gouda that they did not want to be forgoten

What is the one memory of Gouda you would not want to forget?

Then we would enter the data into our *memorymachine*, and take an image of the person remembering that moment.

And get the person to make a mark on the large photocopy of the map with a red cicle.

Many people, had a hard time to choose which place they wanted to remember the most.

Although this was not the case for everyone.

One woman came into the tent to ask about the project and when we told her, she stood for a while and left but said she would return later on.

Later on in the day, she did return to our tent. And stood in front of the map for ages.

She explained about how so many things had changed in Gouda.

And that She missed the small houses and buildings that had been overtaken by the Global brands, companies and shops.

Gouda has changed a lot, so much and she continued to explain that she did not want to forget anything.

But she could not bring herself to put these into our memory machine.

It made me wonder about the subjectivity of Gouda.

Ranti mentioned about this element that is lacking. I noticed that its hard for people to share a part of themselves.

It became clear that no one is usally asked about their personal insights in regard to the city.

People seemed to be genuinely grappling to answer the questions posed with actual memories.

I was looking for the characters of Gouda, this lady had some great pink lipstick on but I couldn't get her into the tent

We ask people to leave thier name and phone number for our next public intervention.

I suspect I found some of the karaoke singers of Gouda. Singing is a theme that keeps recurring in relation to Gouda.

There are 40 choirs and a young population of Women that like to sing kareoke at Cafe new orleans

But this is only a small part of Gouda and its villages, a small, but prominent part in the myths of Gouda to be ciculated to us in the first week of the culturr lokaal project.

During the day Martin and Kristina were talking to people outside preparing them for our tent.

Some visitors were really suprised that there was so much public participation

Mark and Lindsey would come in and outside the tent depending on what was happening.

The free mint tea and coffee were a total hit. Some people had a hard time believing that the mint fresh into hot water was so lekker.

In general we made some new friends and it was a positive day of memory gathering.

For a wet and cold February Thursday in Gouda

Next time we would like to spend more time acting as counselors, to help them pick one memory in order to crystalise that sentance to really provide a meaningful experience.

This was a two person homie heart gesture like our flyer I noticed later on in the day at the postoffice in Gouda. The signs that all was well, according to me. ;)

and these pictures we investigated the possibility of making an open kitchen place to the street at the concordia builing...

Nancy Mauro-Flude Gouda, Feb 21 2008 info: Culturr Lokaal