Eastside

Twenty-three years after Simon Wheatley’s photographs and accompanying text were published in NRC Handelsblad, this body of work returns in book form for the first time. Made in Amsterdam-Oost during the early 2000s, the photographs move through coffeeshops, streets, youth centres and domestic spaces, tracing the realities of a generation of young Moroccan-Dutch men growing up between exclusion, friendship, religion, masculinity and belonging.

The work observes everyday life in all its contradictions: vulnerability and toughness, humour and frustration, hope and alienation. The photographs form both a portrait of a specific time and a reflection on questions that continue to shape Dutch and European society.

This publication revisits the series as a record of the community and environments that have too often been reduced to stereotype or headline.