Image courtesy of the Houweling Telecommuseum, Rotterdam
Tuesday, July 2, 2024
2:30 PM
Guided Tour of the HOUWELING TELECOMMUSEUM with PELUMI ADEJUMO and ARNOLD ABELS
Off-site at the Houweling Telecommuseum
Vlaggemanstraat 15, 3038 LA Rotterdam
Travel through one hundred and twenty years of telecommunications history at the Houweling Telecommuseum. This tour will be led by museum volunteer Arnold Abels, an integral figure in the making of our current exhibition—for which a number of items are on loan from the museum—and an ex-employee of PTT—the Dutch state company responsible for postal services, telegraphy, telephony and radiotelephony from 1893 until its privatisation as KPN in 1989. He will be joined by Pelumi Adejumo, an artist and poet part of the exhibition who’s sound work is installed across A Tale of A Tub and the Houweling Telecommuseum. As their contribution to the tour, against the backdrop of the museum, Adejumo will recite their essay on civil disobedience and the figure of the typist.
This event has limited capacity so secure your spot by emailing
erika@a-tub.org.
Accessibility
The tour guide is fluent in Dutch and English, and will lead in English“
Biographies
PELUMI ADEJUMO is a Nigerian-Dutch runaway pastor’s child, interdisciplinary writer, and lucid dreamer. They publish poetry, create performances and music, sometimes in collaboration with the collective Public Relations. Their work is strongly influenced by West-African spirituality and mythology, incorporating both Christian and Yoruba influences, as well as queer and feminist theory. Working with themes such as migratory grief, the grammar of the ‘poor’ and researching the role and reclamation of spirituality in queer lives, they understand language also as a place of struggle. Using unintelligibility and the mix-match of languages to open up disruptive creative and musical possibilities.
Housed in an industrial building and telephone exchange dating from 1923, the HOUWELING TELECOMMUSEUM is a unique museum in the north of Rotterdam that manages, conserves and above all shows, hears and smells the history of PTT—the Dutch state company responsible for the post, telegraphy and telephony—and KPN—the current-day supplier of telecommunications to the Netherlands. The museum spans the history of telecommunications from 1880 to 2010 and is run by twenty-five enthusiastic and committed volunteers—all former PTT and KPN employees.
Part of the exhibition