For the National Maritime Museum in Amsterdam, I curated Angels of the Sea with Stephan Vanfleteren (Belgium, 1969), who portrayed pupils of Royal Work IBIS in Belgium. There, the boys - between six and sixteen years old and often with a complex home situation - get offered structure, accommodation, a maritime training and a future. My selection of photographs from the IBIS Collection and the Navigo Museum in Belgium included portraits from the early 1900s.
Het Scheepvaartmuseum, Amsterdam, NL
18 September 2020 - 5 April 2021
See one of the mini lectures about the exhibition below.
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/2f230bb4-0d83-4407-bf6c-0e7b71b774d1/9b759d4a-bf4a-4e6d-80ff-df200cf9e9b6_rw_1200.png?h=dd03e409d969acdf88b40134b5156365)
Stephan Vanfleteren, Gabriel, 2016
![a black and white photograph of seven young boys in dark sailor suits. The y stand in a line, with the youngest, who looks tiny like a six year old on the far left. The other six boys look bigger and older.](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/2f230bb4-0d83-4407-bf6c-0e7b71b774d1/5151d1fc-0a19-4c42-95f6-e93a10d46768_rw_600.jpeg?h=80455e543e1b0f2feabdffe39d2be0e6)
Louis Visage (far left) and fellow IBIS pupils, c. 1920. Collection NAVIGO Museum, Belgium
![a hand-coloured black and white identity portrait of a boy in a sailor suit with blue eyes and orange lips. On his sailor hat it says IBIS and the hat also has a crown, four emblems are sewn in the corners of the photograph](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/2f230bb4-0d83-4407-bf6c-0e7b71b774d1/068f41fe-ffc8-42d0-b751-c72d56e2d01b_rw_1920.jpg?h=72f517d95aab12f92850152d9f8b7603)
Hubert Cattoor, c. 1951. Collection Royal Work IBIS
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/2f230bb4-0d83-4407-bf6c-0e7b71b774d1/68b5e285-118e-474c-80ee-9a5bcfe722f5_rw_1920.jpg?h=4cdf164841fc351cda170c370437ef0e)
Stephan Vanfleteren, Llyano, 2016
![](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/2f230bb4-0d83-4407-bf6c-0e7b71b774d1/00785401-f3bb-497e-a957-805e8311d363_rw_1200.png?h=603f306cc8da7c10b69a6f25c69423af)
Angels of the Sea exhibition design by Sabine Verschueren. Het Scheepvaartmuseum, Amsterdam