Boris van Berkum is part of the thought-provoking group exhibition The Collection Resists at Missiemuseum Steyl, in which 15 international artists intervene in the museum’s historic displays to challenge and reframe their colonial legacies. Van Berkum’s contribution, Eau Décoloniale (2025), subtly disrupts the traditional museum environment through an evocative scent installation that invites visitors to reconsider the sensory and historical context of the collection. His work reinforces the exhibition’s broader critique of entrenched narratives, engaging audiences in a multi-sensory reflection on how histories are preserved and perceived.
The exhibition has been featured and reviewed in the Dutch art magazine Metropolis M, highlighting its critical approach to historical collections and contemporary artistic interventions:
“Upon entering the museum, the first intervention I encounter is by Boris van Berkum—though most will walk right past it. Eau Décoloniale (2025) drifts through the air: the scent of mothballs, tea, earth, and even ‘the bitter tears of Jesus’—otherwise known as myrrh. I noted the smell before I knew what it was–liked it even. It is only after convening with Ekkelboom that I see its description and am suddenly confronted with an immediate shift in perception. Van Berkum’s perfumed interpretation of the Missiemuseum embodies the affective register of the collection: a reminder that the senses attune to histories in ways words cannot immediately capture. By reinterpreting the museum through its smells, Van Berkum not only undermines the hierarchy of knowledge the collection enforces, but also draws attention to the colonial heritage that permeates the collection and even the air itself.”
-Isobel Nicholl