Working from the theory that art is a community builder, we have initiated the outdoor Art Gallery in the Oudezijds Armsteeg. Our local community centre, d’Oude Stadt, kindly donated several secondhand display cabinets. The exhibition was conceived and designed by the residents, while d’Oude Stadt provided financial support for the production of the posters.

After many years of frustration, irritation and aggravation about the twice-weekly garbage mountains in our street, we established and planted the community gardens in the Oudezijds Armsteeg in May 2012.

To our surprise, they have been a huge and welcome success.

The Art Gallery builds upon this success, and is motivated and inspired by our immediate environment. The Art Gallery will focus on history, events and stories within 50—100 metres of the Oudezijds Armsteeg. But, there is far more information to tell than can fit comfortably on a 60×60 cm poster, so we will expand on the poster topics here on our website.

If you have an interesting story to tell, an idea for a poster, or anything similar, then please let us know! by sending an email to contact [at] oudezijdsarmsteeg [dot] nl.

The posters

These are the posters that are currently in production. Each poster has its own web page. Please click on the appropriate link for an English translation, and for more information in both Dutch and English.

	1. Iedere steeg heeft zijn eigen verhaal/What’s in a name?. There is a wealth of fascinating history locked up in the street names of a city. Our poster describes a little bit of the history of the streets and alleys around the Oudezijds Armsteeg.
	2. Oudezijds Armsteeg, 1980. The inner city of Amsterdam was abandoned for many years. The main image in our second poster, dating from 1980, shows how desperate the situation was in the Oudezijds Armsteeg.
	3. Groeten uit/Greetings from For more than a decade the corner of the Oudezijds Armsteeg and the Warmoesstraat was the unwilling rubbish dumping ground for the whole neighbourhood. This poster reminds us how bad it was.
	4. Death in the alley In November 2005 a young British tourist was stabbed to death in the Oudezijds Armsteeg in a late-night drug deal that went horribly wrong.
	5. Kotahitanga A long-time visitor to the alley tells his story.
	6. Simon Pijper The distiller and wine merchant Simon Pijper was located on the corner of the Warmoesstraat and the Oudezijds Armsteeg from at least 1919 to the 1950s.