Eszter Nagy

Eszter Nagy’s installation offers an alternative guide to the actual palaces of The Hague, home of the Dutch royal family, including those that cater to the many, instead of the royal few. Focusing on fifteen shops, restaurants and stores in The Hague that are called palaces, attention is brought to the extraordinariness of everyday life, with its subtle yet intriguing importance. These everyday palaces provide space for ordinary yet fundamental activities such as eating, getting a haircut, and creating community and belonging for customers. They are more substantial in the city than any royal palace.

A series of engraved mirrors honour fifteen of these businesses, uplifting the importance of the ordinary and creating a monument for the small entrepreneurs that shape the city for its people. A video work shows an imaginary route in a landscape constructed of economic palaces. During the graduation show, the project aims to raise attention, urging guests to visit the economic palaces instead of the royal one(s) in order to appreciate palaces of the mundane.

Men's Hair Palace. Polyetherpaleis. Golden Palace. Athene's Palace. Platinum Palace. Roti Palace. Kaa Lun Palace. Haringpaleis. Café Palace. Rick's Vispaleis. Peter Vis and Snackpaleis. Jasmine Palace. Scheveningen Vispaleis. Suezkanaal Vispaleis. Hair Palace.