state of us is a project that comprises an exhibition at de Appel and a parallel series of screenings and performances, focusing on the inherited traumas of colonial violence and control that continue to shape social, mental and physical bodies across generations. The project is a collaboration between EVA International – Ireland’s Biennial of Contemporary Art and de Appel. ‣ About the exhibition and visitor info
+ conversation with Naeem Mohaiemen
📌 Tuesday 02.06.2026, 19:15, at Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam
Still from Naeem Mohaiemen’s A Missing Can of Film (2025)
This screening event presents the Dutch premiere of Naeem Mohaiemen’s A Missing Can of Film (2025), commissioned by EVA International and Kochi-Muziris Biennale, and Zahir Raihan’s iconic documentary Stop Genocide (1971), which is also the portal into Mohaiemen’s film. There will be an introduction and conversation after the screening by Naeem Mohaiemen and Eszter Szakács. This screening is part of the exhibition project state of us, co-curated with EVA International, and is co-presented with the Eye Filmmuseum and the international workshop LIBERATIONS: Questions for Art and Theory (1 – 2 June 2026). ‣ More info and tickets
📌 Thursdays 4, 11, 18 & 25.06.2026, 10:00–17:00 at Dappermarkt
Aftermath at Punt WG, photo: Harm van den Berg
Value Added Text by Alina Lupu is a text-based screenprinting workshop operating inside the Dappermarkt throughout June 2026 as both a printing press and a micro-economy. Borrowing the fiscal term 'value added,' the project examines how commodities gain surplus value, and how language itself can function as added value. For the de Appel Kiosk, rather than bringing fixed slogans, she will generate phrases through conversations with stallholders and visitors, learning from the history and dynamics of the marketplace. ‣ More info
📌 Wednesday 10.06.2026, 19:00, at Cinetol, Amsterdam
Research image for Eimear Walshe, The Piper’s Grip. Image courtesy of The Irish Traditional Music Archive (ITMA)
The Piper’s Grip is a reading with live soundtrack by Eimear Walshe, originally commissioned by Mirror Lamp Press – a tender and reverent account of the homo-erotics of an Irish music session. In the tradition of Irish musical bawdry, this story portrays a man’s ecstatic reconnection with his culture, and in turn with himself. Eimear Walshe’s performance is presented as part of the exhibition project state of us, co-curated with EVA International. ‣ More info and tickets
The closing programme of state of us includes presentations by participating artists and informal artist talks by Ciarán O’ Dochartaigh and Clíodhna Timoney. In the performance riba blòki ta trese rekuerdo / on blocks recalling memories, Family Connection reminisces on futures that may come for the Caribbean islands that share continued Dutch colonisation and occupation. In the spirit of the Rudy Plaate song Mi Ke Sa, the collective proposes pasts yet to take place with poetry, music and archival images. The performance invites the audience to rethink linear time, absences and agency. ‣ More info and tickets
📌 Public Programme: 12–14.06.2026 at OT301
Exhibition: 03.07–14.08.2026 at de Appel
Building a House Without Bricks is a Harvest Festival consisting of a public programme and exhibition hosted by damdam – a collective of collectives brought together by de Appel Curatorial Programme & Sandberg Instituut temporary master Lumbung Practice – which seeks to cultivate methods of collective organisation in times of crisis. The festival is formulated around three central questions: How to organise? How to distribute labour and resources? How to share what we produce? The three day public programme at OT301 is the first act, addressing these questions through practice. The exhibition at de Appel is the second act, where we invite you into the house, turning to the physical and material structures inside. ‣ More info
IMAGINART symposium in collaboration with the University of Amsterdam and de Appel
📌 Tuesday 16.06.2026 at Cinetol, 10.00–18.00
The big circle meeting during KUNCI’s 20th birthday, Yogyakarta, August 29, 2019. Image: Nuraini Juliastuti
The symposium presents the output of the IMAGINART research project on Imagining Institutions Otherwise: Art, Politics, and State Transformation (2020-2026), while expanding its scope through a focus on Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and the current conjuncture in order to tackle core political urgencies affecting the role cultural institutions play in society. IMAGINART’s main proposition is that these socio-artistic experiments produce an institutional otherwise in the here and now that may prefigure the future of cultural and other institutions. Thus, the symposium asks: What does it mean to ‘imagine institutions otherwise’ in this moment? What are meaningful responses to the ongoing fascist attack on cultural institutions? How do propose to change our organised ways of being and working together? Can their tentative proposals, their lessons in the minor key, show how cultural institutions could emerge from the current polycrisis? ‣ More info and reservations
Symposium with yasmine eid-sabbagh in collaboration with If I Can’t Dance
📌 Sunday 21.06.2026, 11:00–18:00 at GROND
Held in conjunction with the opening of Frictional Conversations – The Script by yasmine eid-sabbagh in collaboration with composer and musician Sary Moussa at If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution, de Appel co-hosts this symposium on Sunday 21 June at GROND Bajesdorp.
Initiated in 2001, Frictional Conversations is an ongoing process of (counter-)archiving that engages a repository of photographs from Burj al-Shamali, a Palestinian refugee camp in southern Lebanon. For this iteration at If I Can’t Dance, the repository is transformed into a script for an experimental radio broadcast amplifying the voices of five generations of Palestinians who have been living in displacement since 1948. The script forms the basis for a month-long programme of activations, reading circles, and workshops. Convened by eid-sabbagh in dialogue with scholar Layal Ftouni, the symposium further explores the questions raised by the project, bringing together guests whose practices engage with sound, piracy, anti-colonial solidarity, archiving, and critical fabulation. ‣ The full programme will be announced on our website soon
Over the past few months, a group of young people from Amsterdam-Zuid have been working on a new public poster campaign for Amsterdam, as part of de Appel’s Teenage Curators programme. In collaboration with social print shop NOT SHIT PRINT and artists Kenneth Aidoo and Yamuna Forzani, the group is currently developing a series of posters that will be shown throughout the city this summer. Drawing on conversations about fashion, identity, sustainability, community and equality, the project brings together diverse voices, concerns and perspectives of young people in public spaces. On Friday 26 June the poster campaign will be launched during a public presentation featuring various activities involving the Teenage Curators. ‣ The full programme will be announced on our website soon
Right in the heart of de Pijp’s cultural centre, OBA, Cinetol, Tempel, CC Amstel and de Appel present Ruwe Diamant Festival 2026. Ruwe Diamant Festival showcases the diversity of the Diamantbuurt neighbourhood (and just beyond), its cultural organisations and its emerging talent. On Saturday 27 June starting 13:00, the square on Tolstraat, Cullinanplein and Dora Tamanaplein will be busy with circus acts, music, workshops, an art market, a panna tournament and more. de Appel contributes to the programme with a Tatreez workshop, Martín La Roche’s Musée Légitime and a book market with locals Terry Bleu and HOTHEAD. ‣ More info
Help us by filling in an online survey that takes approximately 5 minutes of your time, and in return either visit our current exhibition state of us for free, or get a free warm drink at the bar (by showing the confirmation of your participation to the exhibition host). ‣ Fill in the survey here!
