On March 30, an inspiring edition of BAZ Academy+ Art & Care took place, organized by the Beelden aan Zee museum.
The symposium brought together healthcare professionals, scientists, experts, and other interested parties around one central question: what role can art play in the well-being of people within the healthcare sector?
The occasion was prompted by a special collaboration with five Dutch healthcare institutions, which have received over 150 museum works on long-term loan from the Beelden aan Zee museum. In this way, art is made accessible to both residents and caregivers, leading to valuable moments of relaxation, recognition, and dialogue.
During the BAZ Academy+ Art & Care on March 30, a collaboration with the healthcare sector, unique to the Dutch museum sector, was explained. Since 2023, five Dutch healthcare institutions – Zorggroep De Laren, Cordaan, Amarosa, Rosa Spier Huis, and Bloezem – have received more than 150 museum works on long-term loan from the Beelden aan Zee museum.
Lot Fakkeldij, Project Manager Collections, selected sculptures for indoor and outdoor spaces in consultation with the healthcare institutions, by sculptors such as Arthur Spronken, Piet Esser, Nic Jonk, and Nicolas Alquin.Brigitte Bloksma, Director of the Beelden aan Zee museum: “I hope that this project inspires other museums to open up their depots and display that beautiful Collection of the Netherlands in places where it touches people directly and most: in their living room, next to the hospital bed, or during a short walk.”
Hester Branderhorst, Director of Amarosa, is pleased with the collaboration: “At all locations, there are sculptures that clients, employees, and visitors walk past in a natural way. The sculptures serve as silent witnesses to beauty and inspiration; they radiate a sense that they ‘are there’. In the everyday world, where elderly care often revolves around the end of life and the weight of daily work, the sculptures point to a different reality. That is inspiring.”
Esther van Dalen, General Director of Zorggroep De Laren: “The collaboration with the Beelden aan Zee museum aligns seamlessly with our vision of Positive Health. In this vision, the well-being and welfare of our residents are central. Art connects, imagines, and inspires wonder. It sometimes briefly takes the resident to another world or a memory of the past. Additionally, it encourages conversation between residents, family, and staff.”
Esther van Dalen, Director of Zorggroep De Laren, and Eliza Perez, Project Leader of the Art & Care Program at Cordaan / Francine van der Wansem.
Nelke Manders, Director of the Rosa Spier House, also highlights the positive effects: “For our residents – all with a background in art or science – the sculptures serve as a direct invitation to continue looking, reflecting, and creating. For staff, too, they contribute to a rich, cultural work environment where care and art naturally come together. This collaboration reinforces our conviction that art not only enriches but also connects and contributes to the quality of life. Together, we create space for meaningful encounters and new perspectives.”During the symposium, Prof. Dr. Tineke Abma of the Leyden Academy gave an inspiring lecture on the importance of art within healthcare practice. Using compelling examples from various healthcare domains, she demonstrated the positive health effects of art and creativity. For instance, it appears that ‘Museum on Prescription,’ a museum visit prescribed by a doctor, works well as a treatment for young people with mental health problems. “Bringing both worlds together is not always easy to achieve,” stated Professor Abma. “Despite a growing number of successful projects in the Netherlands, the field remains fragmented and its potential remains underutilized.” She therefore advocates for the development of a field of art and care.
Prof. Dr. Tineke Abma of the Leyden Academy / Francine van der Wansem.
Following this, healthcare professionals engaged in a discussion with Professor Abma about the impact of art on well-being, and the role of aesthetics and creativity in daily life within healthcare institutions. Eliza Perez, Project Leader of the Art and Care Program at Cordaan, spoke about the resistance sometimes encountered by healthcare workers due to high workloads. “The most rewarding part of my job is convincing someone like that of the added value and impact of utilizing art and culture. Colleagues who then experience it themselves often become our greatest ambassadors!”Afterwards, an impressive dance performance by Marc Vlemmix Dance took place, performed by five dancers living with Parkinson’s, rheumatism, or MS. Museum educators also provided an explanation of the inclusive art programs at Museum Beelden aan Zee: Blijft je bij , for people with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia, and Binnen handbereik , for visitors with a visual impairment.
The dancers of Marc Vlemmix Dance / Francine van der Wansem
The symposium was made possible in part by support from the VriendenLoterij, the Jo Visser Fund, and Zorggroep De Laren. Museum Beelden aan Zee expresses great appreciation to all speakers and participants for their commitment and valuable contributions.Danielle Swarts, manager of the Jo Visser Fund: “As a catalyst, the Jo Visser Fund contributes to greater visibility of art for young and old! How wonderful it is to engage in conversation with one another and experience the emotion that art does to you. Museums provide a beautiful backdrop for this kind of knowledge exchange, but also a place to share and connect the world between art and care.”
Work by Per Abramsen (donation by Mrs. Berry Koedam, 2024) with the Rosa Spier House Sculpture Committee.Sensory Path at Cordaan, a special sensory garden route created at a residential care facility in Gaasperdam, Amsterdam Southeast.
Header image: From left to right: Esther van Dalen (Zorggroep De Laren), Hester Branderhorst (Amarosa), Brigitte Bloksma and Lot Fakkeldij (Museum Beelden aan Zee), Eliza Perez (Cordaan), Nelke Manders (Rosa Spier Huis) and Monique Dupon (Bloezem) / Francine van der Wansem. All works by Magali Reus.
Venue provided complimentary food and drinks during Sherika’s visit for this feature. The Hague Online retained editorial control, and the views expressed are the writer’s own
I believe there are very few things a good cup of tea or coffee and a slice of cake can’t fix. I happened upon Adore Cake Atelier while scrolling through Instagram one day and knew I had to make my way there as soon as possible to satisfy a cake craving that had been building for a while.
The owners, Daria and Anastasia, are two young and enthusiastic Russians who came to The Hague around eight years ago and connected on having similar backgrounds — only to later discover they had both attended the same university in Finland several years prior (talk about fate!). The two clicked and a lovely friendship blossomed. Anastasia was working in corporate with baking as a hobby, while Daria was a home baker, and around two and a half years ago they decided to turn their shared passion into something real. The dream of opening a café was no longer just a dream.
The initial idea was to have a smaller takeaway-only space, but they decided to go big. If it scares you, then you know you should go for it — that was their philosophy, and the pair bravely took on the daunting process of setting up their business even though they were nervous. Finding the right size, neighbourhood, and space was no easy task, but just as luck would have it, they found their spot at Kepplerstraat 125. Daria recalls sitting in that very space years earlier — it was a lunchroom back then — and envisioning a café of her own. Well, the universe was clearly listening, because that same spot is now what she proudly calls her work home.
With a charming corner entrance and plenty of space inside, the café has a welcoming, calm atmosphere. The best sellers are the blueberry and poppy seed cake — tart, fluffy, and just the right amount of sweet — the honey cake, a beloved Slavic recipe and a labour of love, made up of several thin, caramelised pecan layers sandwiched with a tangy, rich frosting (my personal favourite), and the raspberry red velvet. I also tried the mango and passion fruit cheesecake, which was smooth and creamy with the perfect jiggle.
They have recently introduced weekend breakfasts with both Danish and Nordic-style options, ideal if you’re in the mood for something savoury. The drinks menu features seasonal creations, with current offerings including a pistachio latte, raspberry mint tea, and a coconut vanilla iced latte. They also love dreaming up creative limited-edition cakes — a Bridgerton-inspired creation was on the menu when Season 4 of the hit series launched recently. Keep an eye on their Instagram for the next special treat.
The duo also take custom orders for birthdays, weddings, and other special occasions, as well as last-minute cakes for those forgotten anniversaries. And if you’ve ever wanted to learn the craft yourself, they offer cake decorating workshops too. With a terrace also on the way this spring, there’s never been a better reason to pay Adore Cake Atelier a visit. Open everyday except Tuesdays, add this spot to your upcoming weekend plans to satisfy your sweet tooth craving.
Images: Sherika Rooplal-Clappers and Adore Cake Atelier
Do you have a story about your own café, restaurant or bar in the city? Reach out to sherika@thehagueonline.com to possibly be featured.
Sherika Rooplal-Clappers is a contributing writer for The Hague Online, covering culture, lifestyle, and local events. With a passion for storytelling and international perspectives, she highlights the people, places, and experiences that make The Hague a dynamic city.
April at Pathé is all about diversity and cinematic spectacle, with a line-up ranging from intergalactic animation to gripping biopics. From The Super Mario Galaxy Movie and The Devil Wears Prada 2 to Michael, BTS live screenings and arthouse titles such as The History of Sound and Father Mother Sister Brother, there is plenty to look forward to this month.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (OV version) – 1 April (IMAX, Dolby Vision, 4DX, ScreenX) The Super Mario Galaxy Movie is an animated film set in the world of Super Mario Bros. and follows on from The Super Mario Bros. Movie from 2023, which grossed more than 1.3 billion dollars worldwide. Both films are produced by Chris Meledandri of Illumination and Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo.
The Super Mario Galaxy Movie @ 2026 Universal Pictures International. All rights reserved
The Drama – 2 April Just days before their wedding, the relationship between Charlie and Emma is turned upside down when Emma reveals a shocking secret from her past. What should have been a time of love and anticipation becomes an emotional crisis, with Charlie questioning everything he thought he knew about his future wife. As the wedding approaches, their relationship is put to the test and they must decide whether their love can survive the truth.
Kain – 2 April Kain is a tragicomedy by director Gabriel Bauer, following the fearless and uninhibited autistic protagonist Kain, played by Daniël Gellvoet. Determined to prove he can live independently, work, and get his driver’s licence, Kain navigates a world that often misunderstands him. When he meets the love of his life, his desire to connect with the world around him becomes even more pressing, raising the question of what ‘normal’ really means.
The Mummy: A Film by Lee Cronin – 16 April (IMAX) Following the success of Evil Dead Rise, writer and director Lee Cronin reimagines one of the most legendary horror stories of all time. When a journalist’s young daughter disappears in the desert, her family is left devastated. Eight years later, she suddenly returns, but what should be a joyful reunion quickly turns into a nightmare.
Father Mother Sister Brother – 16 April Father Mother Sister Brother is the latest film by Jim Jarmusch (Paterson, Only Lovers Left Alive), exploring family relationships, generations, and human observation through three stories that are at once comic, heartfelt, and quietly confronting. In Father, adult children Jeff (Adam Driver) and Emily (Mayim Bialik) visit their eccentric father (Tom Waits) in rural America, in a loving yet awkward attempt to reconnect that reveals more than it hides. In Mother, a successful writer (Charlotte Rampling) welcomes her two adult daughters, Timothea (Cate Blanchett) and Lilith (Vicky Krieps), into her Dublin home for their annual tea gathering, where emotions are carefully kept at bay. Sister Brother follows twin siblings Skye (Indya Moore) and Billy (Luka Sabbat) as they unravel family ties in the nearly empty Paris apartment of their recently deceased parents.
Michael – 23 April (IMAX, Dolby Vision, 4DX, ScreenX) Michael is a cinematic portrait of the life and artistic legacy of one of the most influential performers the world has ever seen. The film explores Michael Jackson’s life beyond the music, tracing his journey from his early days as the frontman of the Jackson Five to becoming a visionary artist determined to be the greatest entertainer in the world. Alongside his personal story, the film also features iconic performances from the early years of his solo career, placing the audience in the front row of his rise to fame.ingly unhappy ends, Redfellow finds himself in need of his creativity in another way as well…
Ladies Night: The Devil Wears Prada 2 – 29 April The Devil Wears Prada 2 can be experienced first during Ladies Night on 29 April. In this long-awaited sequel, a new crisis forces iconic editor-in-chief Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) and Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway) to confront their complicated relationship once again.
The Devil Wears Prada 2 @ 2026 The Walt Disney Company Benelux. All rights reserved
Pathé is the first and largest cinema brand in the Netherlands, founded in Paris in 1896 by true pioneers of film: the Pathé brothers. Their aim was to share the wonderful world of film with as many people as possible. Throughout the Netherlands, Pathé has 30 locations, 253 screens and 1,900 employees. Through its wide range of films, livestreams of opera, sports and gaming, among others, the latest techniques such as IMAX, 4DX, Dolby Cinema and ScreenX, and business events, Pathé creates special and unforgettable cinema stories for all.
Disclaimer& Copyright notice
Pathé is a partner of The Hague Online, and we receive cinema tickets in exchange for sharing monthly updates and links on our website and in our enewsletter. Text is provided by Pathé in Dutch and translated into English by The Hague Online. Images are provided by Pathé. Text and images may not be copied and shared without permission.
In the first quarter of 2026, the Cultuurfonds Zuid-Holland is contributing €385,467 to 57 valuable cultural and nature projects in the province.
Now that spring has arrived, the Cultuurfonds Zuid-Holland is already looking ahead to the upcoming festival season. Below are a few wonderful examples that the Cultuurfonds is keen to highlight.
New Indies city festival in The Hague
From August 21 to 23, 2026, the first edition of the new Jalan Jalan Festival will be organized in The Hague. Following a successful preview in 2025, the new three-day Indies city festival is being held this year on the weekend after the National Commemoration of August 15, 1945. The festival is conceived as a dynamic urban parcours, where visitors discover stories, tastes, and sounds at iconic and unexpected locations while literally walking and wandering jalan-jalan. The Cultuurfonds is contributing €10,000 to the Art & Cinema component of the festival, featuring theatre performances and exhibitions at Filmhuis Den Haag, Flora Filmtheater, and surprising locations such as Museum Sophiahof.
Interdisciplinary performing arts festival on Brienenoord Island
On the last weekend of the summer holidays, from August 27 to 29, 2026, head to Buitenplaats Brienenoord for the interdisciplinary performing arts festival Alle… Grond. Here, young makers from theatre, dance, circus, music, spoken word, and fashion are given a platform to share their work with a curious audience. Spread across intimate spots, open fields, and unexpected locations on the island, the festival demonstrates how art, nature, and community can reinforce one another. The Cultuurfonds supports this project with a contribution of €8,500.
Art and science come together in Leiden
Round off the cultural summer beautifully at the major art and science festival Days of Art&Science in the city center of Leiden. From September 14 to 20, 2026, Stichting Smart is organizing this largely free-to-attend festival featuring, among other things, Art Connecting the Days, a series of exceptional, large-scale artworks spread across multiple locations and program components. The festival receives a contribution of €10,000 from the Elco Brinkman Fund, a named fund of the Cultuurfonds.
Applications to the Culture Fund
It is possible to apply for financial support for a project every quarter. The criteria that an application must meet can be found on the Cultuurfonds website. Applicants can easily complete the conditions check to see if their project is eligible via www.cultuurfonds.nl/voorwaardenwijzer.
About the Culture Fund
The Cultuurfonds invests over 50 million euros in culture and nature every year. That money goes to more than 4,000 projects and individuals throughout the Netherlands, in the Caribbean part of the Kingdom, and in Suriname. We do this with financial contributions from the VriendenLoterij and Nederlandse Loterij, from donors, from bequests, and together with our partners. Associations, foundations, cultural institutions, nature organizations, and individual artists can apply for a contribution for their project. The Cultuurfonds also invests in culture and nature on its own initiative, as well as awards prizes and scholarships. Cultuurfonds Zuid-Holland is one of the twelve provincial branches. www.cultuurfonds.nl
DutchBuzz is an English radio programme of news, views and interviews that tells you what’s happening in this buzzing city of ours. The international team of presenters and reporters are from many different continents, but view The Hague as their home!
Listen live weekly on a Thursday from 7-8pm on Den Haag FM:
After broadcasts, links to the recordings will be shared here.
Thursday 2 April 2026
Dutchbuzz talks to Climate Mayor, Jelle de Jong, about clean air, affordable energy and a livable city, • About human clarity in an over-stimulated world, • And a foundation that helps underprivileged mothers.
In this week’s Dutchbuzz: • We take a look at the renovated boulevard in Scheveningen • Visit the ‘London Calling’ exhibition at the Kunstmuseum, • And feature local writing talent
The Hague’s Pearls – listen to previous recordings
The podcasts below are devoted to members of the international community who have made a special contribution to the City of The Hague.
The DutchBuzz team takes pleasure in inviting and interviewing the city’s many ‘pearls’. Many of them have been featured in our programmes over the years because they reflect our rich and diverse international community.
Newsmakers, writers, local politicians, entertainers, innovators, entrepreneurs, experts in their field, and colourful personalities, they all make The Hague a better place to live and work in.
All the interviews have been broadcast, but we enjoyed them so much that we are now sharing them with you as special, celebratory podcasts.
The following story and photos were shared by a member of our community and are published as submitted. We welcome community voices and experiences from across The Hague. To share your story, please read our submission guidelines.
Uprooting one’s life in search of new beginnings comes with expected challenges. Language barriers and differing social customs are usually at the top of the list for most—this has certainly been the case for me. What I didn’t expect to grapple with quite as much, however, was how deeply I would miss the local cuisine from my home country.
A few months after my big move, a colleague and I bonded over our shared South African roots. Whenever we spoke about the motherland, our conversations more often than not revolved around the dishes we missed or wished were available on menus here. After several of these mouthwatering exchanges, my colleague had the brilliant idea of inviting me over for dinner. On the menu? Boerewors rolls and milk tart. It doesn’t get more South African than that, does it?
I looked forward to our little gathering with giddy anticipation. My boyfriend—who just so happens to be a chef—couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. “Broodjes and wors? You two are having a dinner party with broodjes and wors?” he asked after I showed him a picture of a delicious boerewors roll smothered in caramelised onions. His chef’s brain simply couldn’t justify my excitement over such a simple dish.
He offered to whip up something more elaborate to bring along to dinner, but more wasn’t needed.
How could I explain to my very Dutch boyfriend the role of the boerie in South African society? The alluring smell of braised onions from street vendors lining the sidewalks. Its omnipresence throughout life—from childhood to old age—at school events, sports days, church bazaars, fundraisers, braais, and more. I realised then that it wasn’t so much about the food on the plate, but the nostalgia it evoked.
I began to notice how I missed certain foods at certain times. It’s no coincidence that my mind drifts toward roasted chicken and potatoes on Sundays more than any other day. It’s the quality time with family during Sunday lunch that I truly long for—the noisy chatter as I stuff a second helping of potato bake into my mouth, trying not to make eye contact with my dog who’s hoping to score a treat from the table. Even just a “taste” of that feeling is enough to make me bypass a chef boyfriend’s home-cooked meal and head straight for a boerewors roll or even a simple chicken mayonnaise sandwich.
Curious, I started asking other expats about their experiences and realised I wasn’t alone. Everyone had stories to share about the foods they missed and the lengths they went to keep those culinary traditions alive—painstakingly sourcing ingredients to recreate the flavours and aromas that once filled their childhood homes. Some spoke about substituting hard-to-find ingredients with local alternatives. I thought of how I had smuggled a few jars of butter chicken spice into my luggage on my last trip home. It became clear that my culinary catch-ups with my colleague were far from unique.
One expat told me she travels from Scheveningen to Arnhem every other week just to cook up a storm with friends. The commute, she said, was a small price to pay for a taste of home.
Hearing these stories brought me a sense of comfort. Even with the best support systems, emigrating to a foreign country is hard. And on the days when things feel heavy—or when you simply miss home—it helps to know that something as simple as a familiar dish can soothe the soul.
Summer Jacobs holds an Honours degree in English and has a rich background in journalism, where she spent years interviewing fascinating individuals and sharing their stories. An avid traveler, she recently relocated from South Africa to Den Haag, bringing her passion for storytelling and global experiences to a new chapter in life.
