Eylem Aladogan, A Coffined Cry Cries Out in the Crowd, 2025

Location: Spuiplein, The Hague

On 21 September 2025, De Beeldengalerij in the centre of The Hague was enriched with a new artwork: A Coffined Cry Cries Out in the Crowd by artist Eylem Aladogan. With this new sculpture, created especially for De Beeldengalerij on commission from Stroom Den Haag, Aladogan gives form to existential pain and inner strength: a human cry as an ultimate act of resistance. “I wanted to create an image of pain that runs so deep that you would want to scream it out to the ‘sleeping world’ around you. Not a literal human figure, but the imprint of pain, the echo of a call, captured in form and material.”

In Eylem Aladogan’s oeuvre, willpower and resistance are recurring themes. The title of the sculpture - A Coffined Cry Cries Out in the Crowd - is inspired by protest songs and the work of artist William Blake, in which she recognises a sense of surrender and radicality. The new work expresses the question of how to translate pain into a concrete and tangible form. The unveiling will take place during a public programme at Spuiplein in The Hague, accompanied by music under the direction of Boudewijn Ruigrok.

Eylem Aladogan (Tiel, 1975) is a versatile artist who enjoys combining materials and crafts. She studied at the Willem de Kooning Academy and was a resident at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten. She has received several awards, including the Stimuleringsprijs from the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, the ABN AMRO Art Award and the Volkskrant Visual Arts Prize. From 2014 to 2023 she served as head of the Ceramics Department at the Gerrit Rietveld Academy. Her work has been shown at, among others, the Van Gogh Museum, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, the Kröller-Müller Museum, Museum Het Domein, Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam and De Pont Museum in Tilburg.

For 35 years, Stroom Den Haag has been developing a permanent and growing exhibition of sculptures in the public space in the city centre. De Beeldengalerij was launched in 1990 on the initiative of P. Struycken and presents a cross-section of Dutch sculpture. With new commissions each year, it offers a platform to both established artists and emerging talent.

The artwork was realised with the support of the Municipality of The Hague. The unveiling programme is organised in collaboration with Stichting Klapstuk and Stichting Spuiplein.