Last weekend I enjoyed the 2017 edition of Landjuweel (Dutch for "Land of the Jewel") festival at Ruigoord, a 5 days event and one of the highlights of the year.

Ruigoord is a hippie village close to Amsterdam. This village was established in the 70s and provided the free thinkers, anarchist and hippies a geo space to create their community. In last 50 years a lot has changed. While it was allowed to live in the village a long time ago, now this is not allowed anymore. While the area was remote 50 years ago, it is now surrounded by the Amsterdam harbour: oil tanks, container terminals, and many buildings.

The good thing though: although the companies in the harbour constantly trying to get Ruigoord demolished, the local government and law system is still able to prevent it from happening. Wonderful for me and my friends, since the tradition of the annual Landjuweel festivals can still continue, as well as Ruigoord can still be the place for many artists to have their workshops without too many government rules they have to follow (the village has much less laws they need to obey).

Many events are organised by the local community; All of them having the element of 'Art' as the prime component: from poetry/book readings and shows, to performing art, to music from all over the world.

Ruigoord is a special place: for me, for my friends, and for so many other people who either go to Ruigoord once in a while, or more frequent, or have their workshops in the village.

It is one of the few magical places in my little country, the Netherlands.

With photographs I like to give you an impression of my experience last weekend, well last 6 days actually. I hope you like it.

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One of the food corners at Landjuweel; the Oil tanks were build maybe 7 or 8 years ago, before it was unused farmland.

A glimpse of the church in the centre of the village; This church is used for expressions of art, from display, to performing art, to dance floor.

The front of the church at night.

And one of the sides of the church.

The square in front of the church.

Landjuweel was always opened with a music ceremony with many people playing the drums and a huge bonfire. However, the new rules for 2017 forbid open fire, so the bonfire was replaced by a balloon.

One of the buildings in the village mainly used for art events like poetry reading, musical performances with classical and world instruments and more. During Landjuweel it functions as a little bar, mainly.

Visual art in the tree in between the building above and the church.

A typical Landjuweel sign at the entrance of the village.

The main stage with mostly bands playing during the whole festival.

The main stage at night with beautiful video art.

The DAF stage; The stage is old DAF brand bus. This is the acid techno and psy-trance floor.

Some other areas at the festival area at night time.

Now some impressions at daytime!

The main road through the village.

The road from the village to the main area.

The main area with stages, hangout spots, food carts and a bunch of great people.

Many different crazy performing art for the people to experience.

A fortune teller bringing a message from the cosmos and requested to write a message back to the cosmos after which the request was made to randomly select an name and address in a traditional phone book and post the card in the postbox next to the fortuneteller... Hilarious! :)

Real life marionettes.

Museum Revisé showing the Q.A.B. and its history. A solar based energy system - being the prime source of our future lives on earth - build into trees that are so real, nobody is able to see the difference between the real trees we have now, and those build for the Q.A.B. A show of at least half an hour and so funny and beautifully done that I forgot to make any pictures. Except this one at the entrance with the do's and don'ts (in Dutch unfortunately).

Doctor Bibber.

Karaoke and other performing art corner.

I realise I didn't make too many pictures of all the different displays of art, areas and surroundings, but I still hope I could give you a nice impression of the village of Ruigoord and the festival. Ruigoord is truly a very special place that I like to visit, for festivals of any kind or just to hang out in the grass on weekend day.

NJOY

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