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The Royal Seat
Peyman Fazeli

Student of Fine Arts

In “Archive 2.0: Loyal to the Royal?” course we had some interesting discussions about “royalty” and the concept of class in our societies. To me, the idea of royalty, of kingship, of higher-class vs lower-class comes from an upside-down structure in our societies that has been normalized through our documented history. Something is really amiss when a system allows just one person or a group of people to arrive and remain at the top of a power structure. Meanwhile, I was planning to work on a short film about the concept of first class/second class in the Dutch public transportation system, to talk about how this concept is deeply internalized within the culture’s DNA. Almost one third of each train is dedicated first class seating, which is left mostly empty. Even with the urgent need to keep social distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic, people were not allowed to use the empty first-class cabins. What happens in a society that upholds the illusion of class prior to the public’s health and safety?
This Archive course let me continue my research on this matter. It was in the Archive course that I realized that the Dutch train system used to have a third class as well. In Amsterdam’s tram system there used to be a royal’s seat. I found the issue was even deeper; according to the photos I found in the archive, there used to be something called third class beds in Dutch hospitals! Sometimes we uncover some information from our recent past that is shocking for us. I bet coming generations will be shocked to see things that are normal for us now. Returning to my project; I combined these two concepts (the royalty and the first class/second class) and built a “royal seat.”