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Contact

Acronym
MoWIC
Other name (in original language)
Stichting Monuments of the Dutch West India Company (MOWIC Foundation).

Juliana van Stolberglaan 43
2111 CK Aerdenhout
Netherlands

The MoWIC Foundation is a non-profit heritage organisation founded in the year 2000 at Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Its aims are the research on and the conservation of the cultural heritage of the former Geoctroyeerde West-Indische Compagnie (1621-1675) en van de Tweede West-Indische Compagnie (1675-1792), together known by the name Dutch West India Company, the WIC.

====Shared Cultural Heritage====

The predicate ‘monument’ means all objects of the shared cultural heritage, in Dutch: ''Gemeenschappelijk Cultureel Erfgoed''. This concerns all that has been left in former colonies and territories with Dutch historical influences. Beside architecture, there are for instance atlases, paintings and documents, furniture and instruments, but also music, dance and literature. Similar to the Dutch Department of Monument Care and the Rijksdienst voor Archeologie, Cultuurlandschap en Monumenten (RACM), protecting urban centres, MoWIC tries to protect landscapes that had a characteristic role in history. Therefore we speak of tangible and intangible cultural heritage. Obviously MoWIC looks not only to the past, but explicitly also at how the WIC heritage could play a stimulating social, community oriented role for the evolution and well-being of the inhabitants of the concerning countries, today and in the future. For organizing reasons and the Commemoration of the 500 year discovery jubilee of Brazil in 2000, the MoWIC projects started with Fort Orange in Brazil. But there are some interesting contacts and possible projects in the Caribbean territory, like the Synagogue in Sint Eustatius, Ston Oso in Suriname, (British) Guyana, and the Tolerance Park in New-York City, North-America.

====Key Project 2012====

A current MoWIC project is the rescue of the unique collection of Dutch tiles from the Golden Age in the Brazilian city of Recife against wearing away.

See also: Ston Oso - Suriname (Project) Indigenous Medicine in Brazil during the Dutch Period (Project) Nora Schadee (Expert)

http://www.mowic.org/