Pim Westerkamp

Drs. Pim (W.) Westerkamp

Pim Westerkamp was curator of Southeast Asia in the Wereldmuseum and an expert on Indonesian material culture and (colonial) history, the history of collections and ethical issues. Since 2005 until 2025 he was curator of Southeast Asia in the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, and since the merger, for the Wereldmuseum. Prior to this, he worked for fourteen years as a curator Indonesia at the Museum Nusantara in Delft.

Bio

He is currently working on his PhD research on the history of colonial families and the movements of people, objects and stories between Indonesia and Europe and how this relates to the performance of (post) colonial selves and the implication in colonial practices,

He studied Indonesian Languages and Cultures at the University of Leiden and Theatre Studies at the University of Amsterdam. He graduated in 1987 on a comparative study of Javanese dance masks. In 2001 he graduated yet again as an anthropologist with research in the life of young Muslims in Yogyakarta, Central Java.

Selected Publications

2015. Ethnicity or Culture, The Career of Mannequins in (Post)Colonial Displays, in Susan Legêne, Bambang Purwanto & Henk Schulte Nordholt, Sites, Bodies and Stories, imagining Indonesian history, Singapore, National University of Singapore Press
2012. Domestic Life in: Janneke van Dijk, Rob Jongmans, Anouk Mansfeld, Steven Vink en Pim Westerkamp with Wimo Ambala Bayang, Historical photographs in the Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, KIT Publishers
2011. Articles in Janneke van Dijk, Susan Legêne, The Netherlands Indies in the Tropenmuseum, Amsterdam, KIT Publishers
2009. From Singa to Naga Padoha, the making of a magical creature in Journal ‘Indonesia and the Malay world’ vol. 37 (2009), issue 108 (July), 163-181