Anyone can be a stranger. Especially when everyone else is normal. And sometimes being a stranger makes everything else seems strange.

In the official Dutch immigration lingo, “foreigner” is translated as “vreemdeling” which literally means “stranger” But what is so strange about someone who is not from here?

Over the past year, Turkish illustrator Cenk Güngör created the first outcomes of the project “Doe Normaal”. In this project, he observes and challenges what is “normaal” in Dutch culture, and how this normaal is not necessarily relevant for everyone who lives here. His character, Garip the dog, is in the center of these visual stories, representing any foreigner in Amsterdam.

Doe Normaal had started as a visual arts projects but it became something bigger. Bigger than the art or the artist, the inception of a new community. The ‘Doe Normaal’ as a collective will bridge the worlds of all sorts of people from different cultures and creative fields, with the goal of creating a space for anyone who is a stranger in this city. Together we will forge a sense of connection and belonging in the greater Amsterdam creative community.