exhibition-curator and designer

september/ oktober 2025 
WARÚM DARÚM WARÚM DARÚM a conversation piece
bagagehal of Loods6 Amsterdam. 

Trump's absurd inauguration and J.D.Vance's terryfing speech before the european Security Councel in Munich, where the chairman burst into tears, were the big push behind this project. 
An exhibition and literairy manifestation with ten visual artists under which Aernout Mik, Tina Farifteh and Krystel Geerts and eight spoken word artists, poets and essayists under which Daniëlle Sawadi and Daria Lysenko and performances by Mel Chan and Marieke Coppens
I took the initiative together with Sanne Danz, we won the Open Call that Loods6 launched, were the curaters and  designed the exhibition and literairy manifestation.
All in seven months time.

With Great thanks to the AFK (Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst) and the team of Loods6.

The literary contributions were provided by the editors of Dig, the digital sister publication of literary magazine De Gids. (https://www.de-internet-gids.nl/) The opening featured a performance by spoken word artist Danielle Zawadi and on the last day of the exhibition there was a wonderful lecture by Daria Lysenko, who addressed the key question of this exhibition. Why do we live in an endless cycle of violence and peace?  (https://www.de-internet-gids.nl/artikelen/is-de-mens-nog-steeds-gefascineerd-door-wreedheid)
In between there were performances by Asmae Ammadaou, Caglar Koseglu, Fabienne Rachmadiev, Maureen Ghazal, Nguyen Nam Chi, and Zaban Razdar. All performances were recorded and then immediately played back as a cacophony in the exhibition. But if you stood next to one of the sound boxes, you could hear the individual voices. 

On the Sunday of the third week, everything came together for the first time. All the works, all the voices, it left little untouched. 

works in  order of apearence, (pictures by  Reinier Gerritsen en Jitske Nap)

- Nataliya Zuban, Witnessing an Event (2025),
185 x 95 x 195 cm Materials: fired clay, steel, steel wire mesh, motor, and mixed media
Zuban was born in 1992 in Opishnia, Ukraine and works as mainly as a sculptor.
This durational artwork is a kinetic sculpture that gradually destroys itself in the process of fulfilling its intended function. It comprises a platform, a metal frame, a wire mesh enclosure, a series of ceramic blades, a motor, and a gear system - all integrated into a single functioning mechanism. As the system operates, the blades shred ceramic objects periodically fed into it, while simultaneously eroding and damaging themselves in the process, continuing until the final clay component is shattered. The sound of the ceramic discs grinding against each other formed an audible baseline throughout the exhibition. The work explores destruction through the inherent fragility of clay. Ultimately, it invites reflection on the many forms of collapse, echoing rhythms of violence that are systematic, repetitive, and self-consuming.

- Mel Chan, It’s Only the End of the World no. 27, 28, 29 (2021)
Oil on Linen
240x150cm, 240x210cm, 240x190cm
Born in Hong Kong and based in the Netherlands, Mel Chan creates participatory, poetic, and reflective artworks that navigate the ruins of colonialism, neocolonialism, and ecological crises. Her practice, encompassing painting, video, storytelling, hypnotherapy, and performance, explores how to coexist with uncertainty and find hope amid dystopia.

- Karel van Laere, SLow, Taipei (2013), single-channel video work, (18 min)
SLow is a filmed recording of the performance in which the artist's defenceless human body, dressed in an initially immaculate suit, is dragged (or drags himself) through the Taiwanese cityscape with the aid of an invisible electric hoist and an invisible plank on which he lies. In this way, he marks in an entertaining and wondrous way the contrast between the route of the defenceless human body and the hectic and threatening world around it. 

- Hanna Hrabarska, My mom wants to go home (2024)
A chair, 12 piles of postcards on the floor, the mother
After two years of war, Ukrainian photographer Hanna Hrabarska fled to the Netherlands with her mother. She created an intimate visual reportage of this experience and printed it on 12 postcards for visitors to take home. Her mother was present at the opening and handed out and signed the cards. Hanna translated the Ukrainian to English. It was a moving physical encounter between the mother, the work, the photographer and the visitors.

- Mel Chan
Lecture Performance with Storytelling, Poetry-Reading, Sound, Hypnosis, and Projection
Duration: around 60 minutes
On 5th of October Mel Chan gave the performative lecture: 
Just One Look, and She Turned Into a Pillar of Salt using this overheadprojector.
Through this performance, Chan invites the audience to inhabit the perspective of Lot’s wife—a nameless figure stripped of agency and identity. Her backward glance becomes a radical act: a refusal to avert her eyes from suffering, a confrontation with unbearable truth, and a surrender to transformation. This final gaze transcends personal survival, merging her being with nature’s elemental force.

- Danielle Zawadi (1999), performer, writes prose and performs spoken word. Her stories often deal with what it means to be a second-generation immigrant: born in the Democratic Republic of Congo but raised in the Netherlands. She performed Vader verjaardag at this opening night.
This, and some of the works of the other seven performing poëts can be read on:   https://www.de-internet-gids.nl/artikelen/vader-verjaardag

- Carolien Scholtes (Den Haag 1958), The Martyrs 1 and 2 (2025), photographic prints  on ultramatt paper. 235cm x 150 cm.
Scholtes creates installations in her studio that she photographs or films and then destroys. The Martyrs is a series of twelve works inspired by the impressive flowing cloaks of martyrs in El Greco's paintings. The installations are made from everyday materials such as carpet, vinyl, elastic and bin bags. These materials are taken out of context, and thus rendered meaningless, only to miraculously come to life in a different way in the artwork. This approach universalises martyrdom and disconnects it from religion or culture.

- Karel van Laere, The suit he wore during the shooting of Slow (see above)

- Krystel Geerts, La Chimera (2025) Ceramic, silicon, bricks, mortar, iron 320 x 240 x 100cm
The sculptural gate looks like a baroque ruin, referring to loss, destruction and history, but was actually created through the extremely physical actions of folding, compressing and collapsing clay, thereby expressing fysical strength and mental flexibility.

- Marieke Coppens, Pre-Remains (2009),
This video refers to Warúm Darúm's Satellite Programme at Huis te Vraag in Amsterdam on 10 October: a performance with four horses and eight assistants at Huis te Vraag in Amsterdam, about the appeal and beauty of violence. A ritual act that tells the story of torture and quartering. (60 min)

- Carolien Scholtes Dust to Dust (2013), video work (11.43 min)
A woman is seen crouching down, viewed from behind, the floor littered with clothes, clearly men's suits.  She wobbles a little. Then she swings to the side, very slowly but with enormous force. She hangs unnaturally crooked like a motorcyclist. Then she straightens up again and swings to the other side. This repeats itself dozens of times. In this way, the suits are slowly pushed out of the picture without her touching them. It seems as if she is summoning the forces that push the clothes away. Call it mourning work.

- Aernout Mik. Raw Footage (2006),
two-channel video installation (93 min)
In this work Mik shows how normality and extremity are intertwined in war situations. In this work, he uses existing documentary film footage of the war in the former Yugoslavia for the first time; raw, unedited images that he found in the media archives of Reuters and Independent Television News (ITN), among others. In search of different layers of reality, Mik focuses his attention on war, with the aim of undermining the superficial and at the same time “spectacular” images we know from the mass media. 

- Hamsa Badran, Untitled (2025), Group of sculptures, foam
The Palestinian artist created this group of sculptures based on the weapons he and his friends played with every day in the West Bank. The sculptures are life-size and made of foam. He did not give the work a title so as not to romanticise the horrors of war or exploit them commercially.  

- Tina Farifteh, ik en jij (2023) 
Soundwork in a telephone booth
Shortly after October 7,  Iranian rooted artist Tina Farifteh created the installation 'i and you', a telephone booth in which people could anonymously share their thoughts and feelings about Israel and Palestine. She investigates what it means to engage in dialogue, to share and listen, at a time of extreme violence, dehumanisation, oppression, grief, overheated emotions, abuse and manipulation of language.

2022
Op het oog naar het schijnt
Projectspace57 Amsterdam

A duo exhibition curated and designed by me.