Bart Van Der Gaag is a Dutch filmmaker and photographer who has given his backing to National Collective, saying:
“I believe in people’s right to rule themselves, to have pride in a national identity and the right to self-determination. Were I Scottish, I know how I would vote come the referendum.”
Bart has produced and directed dozens of music videos for various Swedish artists, spent several years working for the Uppsala Short Film Festival, and has spent a few years in the Middle East making an insightful documentary about the methods of internal security police.
He has also worked at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in Perth, Western Australia, and for the past 18 years has worked for the Department of Cinema Studies, holding courses teaching media production and journalistic production at the Department of Journalism at the Stockholm University.
Recently, two of his films were featured on the Vimeo HD Channel and he worked as a film curator for the Vimeo Festival and Awards.
Bart now does commercial photography and cinematography with the graphics company Diablitographics. In his free time he produces short films of a more artistic nature.
“I was born in the Netherlands and emigrated to Australia at the age of 6. I remember clearly my first days in school in my new homeland as all the students would be standing in a single file before going into the classroom and a song would come on the PA system and everyone would sing along.
“That song was the first English song that I learnt. The song was ‘God Save the Queen’. We did nothing like this in Holland and I found the whole concept rather bewildering. Being only 6 I was politically unaware but found it odd why we all cared so much for the health and well-being of a woman thousands of miles away. It wasn’t instantly clear to me why this would be Australia’s National Anthem.
“Throughout my schooling years in Australia I became very much aware of why we cared so much about the English Royals. The history that was taught in the Australian schooling system was English history. Captain Cook, Sir Joseph Banks, the Kings and Queens of England and of course English literature.
“Australia, as most people are aware, is a multi-cultural society made up of people from all over the world. Most of the people that I grew up with were either of Scottish or Irish decent. The Scots in Australia are Scots; they have a strong sense of national identity as they do in most other parts of the world, and I always found it perplexing why this national identity didn’t exist in Scotland. But I was obviously wrong; national identity and the desire for self-determination is now alive and well in Scotland.
“I joined National Collective because I believe strongly in people’s right to rule themselves, to have pride in a national identity and the right to self-determination. Were I Scottish, I know how I would vote come the referendum.”
Autumn by the Lake
Two Fifty Three Kelvin
Into the Sun
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