The panel saw several projects centring on a family history or a house where time had stood still. The best liked of these was the book in which Annelou van Griensven, a master’s student at the Sandberg Instituut, immerses herself in the life of Anneke de Bruijn, who lived and had a shop in the village where van Griensven was born. In the abandoned village shop van Griensven discovered a treasure-house of clothing and household items from the last century. She transported herself into the way people of the time lived by spending a fortnight there alone, shut off from modern life, with no modern means of communication such as the Internet or a mobile phone – and wrote down her experiences. In so doing she brought the story of Anneke de Bruijn and the shop back to life, principally through photographs that give a vivid picture of the house, the shop and their contents, including cash books and the pedigree for Anneke’s keeshond Jasper. Time stands literally still, the garden unattended, everything else covered in dust.

Van Griensven recorded and listed everything, right down to the unopened packets of tights. With Hans Mooijer as photographer she then made a series of hip fashion photos using the clothing she found in the shop. In the present-day setting the clothes take on a new and different overtone: things that would ordinarily have been discarded as rubbish now become objects of beauty and, thanks to their new ‘vintage’ status, highly desirable. The panel thought it remarkable that a master’s student should be capable not just of realizing such a project but also of turning it – under her own steam – into a publication which, like Anneke de Bruijn herself, bears witness to simplicity and tranquillity, yet at the same time has so much to tell us.