Arnon Grunberg - Les Vacances de Monsieur Grunberg

Summer holidays and photos are inextricably linked. Dutch novelist Arnon Grunberg explores family holiday habits in this project with visual artist Wendela Hubrecht.

Holiday, celebrate

Les vacances is a sequel to Grunberg's 'embedment' project with various families from the Leidsche Rijn suburb in Utrecht; 'embed' here meaning that he stayed with a family and participated in their daily activities. Following that first project, Grunberg wanted to investigate the phenomenon of the family more extensively by taking a holiday with one: 'A family on a holiday is a family in a warzone - or to be more concise - in a state of war. That's how I see it.' Following a two-day audition with thirty families at the Holiday Inn in Amsterdam, Grunberg chose the Maud and Nick van der Poel family, who took him to the Greek island of Lefkas with them.