Otto van der Mieden (the Netherlands) with his barrel organ and monkey

Otto van der Mieden
Born in 1945 in The Hague (the Netherlands), Otto van der Mieden is a puppeteer, and founder, director and curator of the Puppetry Museum. Since 1970 he has been collecting anything and everything to do with international puppetry with great passion: both historical artefacts – such as shadow puppets, paper theatres, wayang figures, hand puppets, rod marionettes, rod puppets, literature and graphics – and contemporary pieces of puppetry art. The collection, which is housed in the Puppetry Museum in Vorchten, has been open to the public since 1984. Vorchten is a little village in the northeast of the province of Gelderland, near the river IJssel. Besides its own ever-changing temporary exhibitions, the Museum also organizes travelling themed exhibitions at home and abroad. More on: www.poppenspelmuseum.nl