Theatre Institute Netherlands to continue as museum, perhaps in Arnhem

Clever, of course, but also perilous. Although - hanging over the abyss - there will be little else to do, but turn the TIN (Theatre Institute of the Netherlands) into a Performing Arts Museum. From 2013, because then the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science's money tap will close. In doing so, the institute will implement a rescue plan that will at least save the collection. Whether this will also secure the future of the 68 staff members remains to be seen.

The TIN does not currently have a permanent exhibition venue, but puts together exhibitions that can be seen in various places around the country: in theatre foyers, at festivals. In this way, the institute reached a wider audience than in the days when it still had a physical museum, in three linked monumental buildings on the Amsterdam Herengracht. Those premises the institute sold a few years ago. Part of the money that was released was put into the current (rental) building on Amsterdam's Sarphatistraat, but another part was put in the bank, according to the institute as a pot to pay for a real museum again one day. That pot will now - earlier than planned - be used for the new museum.

There is of course no official word yet on where it might be located, but we know from a very reliable source that director Henk Scholten is thinking of Arnhem as a location. Not only because prices are a bit lower there than in the Capital, but also because it is politically convenient: Arnhem is not Amsterdam, and for a party like the CDA already be enough to want to put extra money into it. The fact that Arnhem is also where the Dutch Open Air Museum sits, and that that museum is now given an additional task as a national history museum, makes Arnhem interesting as a location for a heritage collection.

We will, as always, keep you updated.