Exhibition: 1999

A seven-year-old child is standing on the threshold of the real world, looking in and occasionally setting foot in that big world, but also still frightened by it. They are already going to 'the big school', but nursery school is not that far away. Every day their world expands.

Céline van Balen photographed 28 children, girls and boys. Individuals in their own right, all of them with their own point of view, their own ideas, their own hobbies. All came from different living environments, different backgrounds, different futures. One thing they have in common: they are all seven years old and live in the Netherlands.

The photographer reveals them to us in ways they are seldom seen or photographed by their parents. 

Seven-year-olds is part of a series the Rijksmuseum's Dutch History Department organises in conjunction with the daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad under the title “Document Netherlands”.

Céline M. van Balen