In honour of the 350th anniversary of the Haarlems Dagblad Gerrit van Dijk, the Haarlem artist and animator, made a selection from the extensive photo archive of the world’s oldest newspaper. Van Dijk allowed himself to be guided by the events that take place in Haarlem on an annual basis. The result is a surprising journey through time, and through the collective memory of a city: through Luilak, the Flower Pageant, Jazz Festival and the scenes on the beach at Zandvoort on the first summer day.

The exhibition followed a time line that carried you through all 365 days of the year, highlighting important events by means of thematic photo clusters.

Each Year Anew was first and foremost a feast of memory, in addition sketching a wonderful picture of how our society in general and Haarlem in particular have changed over the past half century. By choosing to work with annually recurrent events Van Dijk was able to reveal how traditions evolve, how the street scene changes, and how fashions come and go. At the same time Each Year Anew provided a fascinating overview of the developments in journalistic picture technology over the past 60 years. To a great extent the photos that we look at in the newspapers every day define our perception of the world around us. Memories of historic events are generally accompanied by a mental image of the event – often with a news photo as the original source.