https://www.bruna.nl/boeken/kind-gezin-en-buitenwereld-9789493443600#details

As a visual artist, much of my work revolves around the representation and dissemination of texts.

I appropriate texts, rewrite them, and turn them into visual works of art, decontextualizing and recontextualizing them to actualize their relevance. By doing so, I make the text accessible to a different audience and infuse it with new meaning.

But sometimes things take a different turn. Winnicott’s The Child, the Family and the Outside World had been part of my world for a few years, ever since my therapist gave me an old copy of his. The work definitely struck a chord and touched upon many themes that I consider crucial in both my work and my life. Then, three years ago, when my partner was expecting our first child, I suggested that she read the book. A few days later, she gave it back to me, saying she would love to read it but felt that her English was not strong enough to grasp all the nuances of D.W.W.’s text. So, I turned to the Internet to buy her a Dutch translation, only to discover it didn’t exist. So, I started translating it myself, for her and our future son. My years of translating magazine articles from English to Dutch gave me the confidence that I would be able to do this, though it took me a bit longer than the eight remaining months of the pregnancy. While translating, it became very clear to me that I not only wanted my partner to read the book, but that it had to be known by as many people as possible. The interest I was rewarded with every time I mentioned my work on the book to people I met, only proved my intuition that the ideas and facts written in the book hadn’t lost any of their pertinence. As the global political situation evolved, I was time and again reminded of the last part of the introduction D.W.W. wrote to the book, where he draws the connection between the dependence on the mother and the urge in people to search for strong leaders to guide them. 

Now, three years later, the translation is done and in the process of being edited. I have not only established a deep connection to Winnicott’s text, but in doing so have gotten to know myself better as well. I have found a publishing house in Belgium who, like me, believes Winnicott’s work can reach a large audience in the Dutch-speaking world. I found a graphic designer whose work I really like and who’s turning the design of the book into a tribute to the 1991 Penguin version I received from my therapist, all those years ago. But most of all, I look forward to being able to share the work, the text, with people, from October onwards, when – oh coincidence – if all goes well, a new member of human society will have entered my little family again. So this time it won’t be translating the book that’ll mirror the growing up of the baby, as was the case between 2022 and 2025, but it will be spreading the book and talking about it which will give me an opportunity to merge, once again, life and (art)work.

August 2025