From 17 September 2026 through 14 February 2027, Rijksmuseum Twenthe, in collaboration with the art and technology festival GOGBOT, presents ‘Democratie NU?’. The exhibition brings together 15 national and international artists to show how power and systems work, how images influence people, and what role people themselves play in contemporary democracies; Jonas Staal is among them, showing how propaganda can manipulate not only opinions but create complete new realities.
The text poses two questions: how does propaganda work in a democratic society, and what do Hollywood blockbusters have to do with perceptions of the United States as a military superpower?
Staal shows that propaganda appears not only in political campaigns or war rhetoric, but also in the stories and images people consume every day.
Propaganda is often understood as a term that applies only to ‘totalitarian’ regimes of the past or to regimes portrayed as trapped in another era, such as Russia and North Korea. In democracies, authoritarian politics is instead discussed through terms including the ‘post-truth era’, ‘alternative facts’ and ‘fake news’, while the word propaganda is avoided. The question follows whether the idea that democracy is free of propaganda might itself be the product of propaganda.
Examples range from science-fiction writers advising French President Emmanuel Macron and Pentagon game developers to the filmmaker who devised Trumpism and the dramaturg who scripted Vladimir Putin’s ‘performance’. Staal is described as an artist, propaganda researcher and author of ‘Propaganda Art in the 21st Century’ (2019) and ‘Climate Propagandas’ (2024).
Entry to the event is free, and tickets can be collected at the Concordia box office on the day.
