De Facto

De Facto Live #6

‘This Land is My Land’. With filmmaker Reber Dosky about Kurdistan, designer Inna Kochkina about the cyrillic script, graphic designer Floor Koomen and musician Dusty Stray about the Black Hills and a quiz by Suzanne Hendriks. Moderation: Jorie Horsthuis.

De Facto | 28 Jun 2023

Analysis Catalonia

Catalonia Can’t Quit Madrid

But separatist parties hope upcoming elections will revitalize the independence movement.

Foreign Policy | 20 May 2023

In focus

An Atlas of countries that ‘don’t exist’

Italian photographers Lavinia Parlamenti and Manfredi Pantanella are working on An Atlas of countries that ‘don’t exist’ which will cover ten unrecognized states. Their aim is to make a photo book with the five places they covered so far: Transnistria, Catalonia, Nagorno Karabakh, Northern Cyprus and Western Sahara.

De Facto | 22 Nov 2022

In focus Moresnet

Amikejo

Since 2012 German artist Valeska Peschke has been developing the long-term project ‘Amikejo’ (place of friendship in Esperanto). Under this name, Neutral Moresnet was proclaimed as an Esperanto republic in 1907. Valeska Peschke took up this fleeting utopia as a vision for Europe. Read more about the project on her website.

Valeska Peschke | 13 Oct 2022

Europe
Art

Long read Eurostaete

Writings on the Wall

A Country of Seven Billion Outhabitants, the long read by De Facto’s co-founder Jorie Horsthuis about EuroStaete, was selected for the editorial project The Writings on the Wall, a collaboration of Volume and Beta, the Timisoara Architecture Biennial 2022.

Volume | 5 Oct 2022

Analysis Catalonia

Catalan Independence: 5 Years on from Referendum

A day marking a historical defeat may seem like an odd point to declare the resurgence of Catalonia’s independence movement. Not for activist Imma Caboti.

Euronews | 3 Oct 2022

Past event

De Facto Live #4

With historian Thomas von der Dunk about South Tyrol, film maker Ineke Smits about Abkhazia, graphic designer Floor Koomen about Cabinda and journalist Jorie Horsthuis about EuroStaete. Quiz by Suzanne Hendriks.

De Facto | 28 Jul 2022

Past event

De Facto Live #3

With writer Philip Dröge about Moresnet, pianist and Soviet expert Sara Crombach about Nagorno Karabakh, artist Oscar Santillan about the Bermeja Island and graphic designer Floor Koomen about Celestia. Quiz: Suzanne Hendriks, moderation: Jorie Horsthuis.

De Facto | 1 Jun 2022

Review

Fortuitous Lines

Borders create paradoxes: when you cross them, everything changes but much stays the same. In Borderlands, Dutch journalist Milo van Bokkum describes this paradox and the way locals deal with the complexities caused by these often arbitrarily drawn lines.

Jorie Horsthuis | 20 Mar 2022

Analysis Transnistria

People, Power and Influence

The development of both Donetsk and Transnistria have a strong tendency to be seen as vessels for Russia’s search for influence in a Post-Soviet world. Yet these states are just as much the result of local context and the geopolitical storm that surrounds them. However, whatever the causes of their tribulations, the burden of international abandonment falls on the people in these nations.

Jonathan Casewell | 20 Oct 2021

Analysis Transnistria

A Hammer, Sickle and a Red Square

As of this year, the Dnister Moldavian Republic, aka Transnistria, has existed for thirty years. In 2000, four stamps were issued to celebrate its ten year anniversary, with plenty of references to a Soviet past.

Floor Koomen | 23 Dec 2020

Review

Between Two Shores

Lithuanian photographer Tadas Kazakevičius’s visual love letter Between Two Shores captures the peace and idiosyncrasy of the Curonian Spit—a unique and spectacular geographical formation, barely a mile wide across, that extends for over 60 miles from the coast of Lithuania into the Kaliningrad oblast of the Russian Federation.

Deep Baltic | 7 Dec 2020

Review

Blood and Circuses

While football may strive to be apolitical and unite people, it has become highly politicised. In Blood and Circuses, Robert O’Connor delves into the collective memory and experiences of football by people who are living in contested territories like Transnistria and Kosovo.

Ramesh Ganohariti | 30 Nov 2020

Interview Hakkelaarsbrug

Meet the Hakkelaars

It started as a ludic protest, but the intentions were clear: the inhabitants of the small Dutch hamlet Hakkelaarsbrug could take care of themselves. A visit to the founder Cees van Apeldoorn.

Olaf van Muijden | 21 Oct 2020

In focus

Subjectio: Online Storytelling

Exactly six years after multimedia journalist Pierre Crom witnessed the very beginning of the annexation of Crimea, Subjectio is launched: an experimental online storytelling project about methods used by superpowers to control and manipulate the representation of the truth.

De Facto | 26 Feb 2020

Past event

De Facto Live #2

With multimedia journalist Pierre Crom about the Donbas, political analyst Wladimir van Wilgenburg about Kurdistan, designer Irene Stracuzzi about the Arctic and graphic designer Floor Koomen about the South China Sea. Moderation: Jorie Horsthuis.

De Facto | 22 Jan 2020

Analysis Baarle

A Town of Two States

Borders, being political creations, have traditionally resulted in significant problems to people living on such territorial anomalies. However in Baarle, with its enclaves, exclaves and counter-enclaves, relative calmness exists. Had such a situation existed anywhere else in the world, there would certainly have been (armed) conflict.

Ramesh Ganohariti | 2 Dec 2019

Past event

De Facto Live #1

With journalist Koen Greven about Catalonia, artist Vibeke Mascini about the Mont Blanc, photographer Rachel Corner and journalist Jorie Horsthuis about Transnistria and graphic designer Floor Koomen about cinderella stamps. Quiz: Suzanne Hendriks.

De Facto | 15 Nov 2019

In focus Mont Blanc

The Reunion, 2018

Have a look at the project by the Dutch artist Vibeke Mascini that aims to reunite the two ‘summits’ that have been expropriated from Mont Blanc—during the first ascend in 1786 and the second in 1787, after being kept in different European museum collections for centuries, both far away from the mountain itself.

De Facto | 3 Dec 2018

In focus Donetsk People’s Republic

War in Ukraine

In War in Ukraine (Lecturis, 2017), multimedia journalist Pierre Crom has documented the highly explosive situation in the Crimea and the Donbas region between 2014 and 2016, when Russian-backed separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk declared independence. With his pictures, Crom brings us closer to the people who got trapped in the chaos of war.

De Facto | 10 Jan 2018

Spain Grants Basque, Catalan and Galician Languages Parliamentary Status

De Facto Live #6

Catalonia Can’t Quit Madrid

An Atlas of countries that ‘don’t exist’

Amikejo

Writings on the Wall

Catalan Independence: 5 Years on from Referendum

De Facto Live #4

De Facto Live #3

Fortuitous Lines

People, Power and Influence

A Hammer, Sickle and a Red Square

Between Two Shores

Blood and Circuses

Meet the Hakkelaars

Subjectio: Online Storytelling

De Facto Live #2

A Town of Two States

De Facto Live #1

The Reunion, 2018

War in Ukraine