club culture / education / film / music / writing / contact
This is the moment when you see who you are (2025) is a short film and film installation that pays tribute to the people in Amsterdam who have taken to the streets in solidarity with Palestine and in protest against the genocide of Palestinians by Israel.
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2025
Tags: Amsterdam, art, film
My new film project PSA was exhibited at solidarity action art exhibition Husrom in Oslo. In a squatted house owned by the richest person in Norway, it was shown alongside Lars Holdhus, Rob Schröder, Henriëtte Roland Holst, and many more legends.
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2024
Tags: art, international
In the workshop Good Praxis — From Individual Desire To Collective Action of the Studium Generale of the Royal Academy of Art for the Joint Research Day 2024, I organised a mutual aid workshop on collective creativity.
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2024
Tags: art, design, education
Together with comrade Together with comrade performer, exhibition maker and Manique Hendricks I contributed to the launch publication What Is An Institute For NightCulture? The book was controversially launched during a lively public discussion about the need for free club culture at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam during the Amsterdam Dance Event 2024.
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Amsterdam
2024
Tags: Amsterdam, club culture, education, writing
For Drifts Festival in Helsinki, 2 - 6 September, I organised a week-long Good Praxis workshop with 50 students of Art School Maa for the opening of their new school year. Connecting to the theme of Drifts Festival—Precarious Lives—students organised a communal celebration based on mutual aid. In other words: we organised a party.
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Helsinki
2024
Tags: art, design, education. international
Good Praxis was part of Intonal Festival Malmö 2024, with a mutual aid workshop and a special foraging and sound walk in a beautiful beech forest.
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Malmö
2024
Tags: art, design, education, international
Dutch art magazine Mister Motley invited me for their podcast series Kunst Is Lang, and republished it during their summer series Zomer Is Lang.
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2024
Tags: Amsterdam, art, club culture, film, research
RoXY has been selected for the Short Movie Club Film Festival “NEFILTRAVANAE KINO”. The 10th edition of this international film festival will take place in Berlin, Helsinki and Vilnius.
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2024
Tags: film, international
How do you organise a club night? What does a climate just club scene look like? And what new forms of collective expression are needed for solidarity, community and revolution? In this workshop we will answer these questions and more together.
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2024
Tags: Amsterdam, art, club culture, education, research
Direct Action is a new programme I am developing as a member of Verdedig Noord. It is both a programme of revolutionary films and a series of online documentaries about protest, civil disobedience and mutual aid for political education.
A public programme will start at the Rietwijker in Amsterdam-Noord in Spring of 2024. Follow Direct Action on Instagram.
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2023, 2024
Tags: Amsterdam, art, education, film
The video RoXY by artist Juha van 't Zelfde outlines the social, political and cultural climate from 1945-1999 in Amsterdam. Documentary footage of protests and art movements merge into partying crowds and early electronic dance music at Club RoXY. A new culture for a new society, in search of freedom and collective joy.
2023, 2024
Tags: Amsterdam, art, club culture, music
Good Praxis is art education for climate justice, celebrating successful models of resistance and regeneration through a series of workshops, assemblies and club nights. To raise awareness for mutual aid as an important and empowering alternative or addition to direct action, we organised a free mutual aid workshop on 19 October at l'automàtica in Barcelona.
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2023
Tags: art, education, international, research
Placing collectivity at the center of education has been a subject of research at the DAS Graduate School. The aim of Collective Creativity is to strengthen mutual solidarity, stimulate political awareness and learn to recognise the creative value of collective ways of working.
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Amsterdam
2021, 2022, 2023
Tags: Amsterdam, education, research
In 1938 the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga published his book Homo Ludens, in which he argues that all forms of human culture originate in play. In post-war Amsterdam, this book inspired cultural movements such as CoBrA, Provo, and punk. Artist, DJ and organiser Juha van ‘t Zelfde sees the same spirit amplified in Amsterdam’s RoXY, a nightclub conceived as total art and aglow with collective resistance through radical imagination and play.
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2022
Tags: art, club culture, film, music
Good Praxis is art education for climate justice, celebrating successful models of resistance and regeneration through a series of workshops, assemblies and club nights. To raise awareness for mutual aid as an important and empowering alternative or addition to direct action, we organised a free mutual aid workshop on 25 October at ABC House in Brussels.
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2023
Tags: art, education, international, research
Studio Vrije Ruimte is a guided experiment in collective education in architecture and urbanism. We do not name an outcome, no individual products, and there is no assessment. The intention is to arrive at a collective presentation that teaches us something about the position of design education in society, in the city, in relation to the (uncertain) future and the past.
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2022, 2023
Tags: architecture, education, Rotterdam
In the Summer of 2022, I was invited by museum Museion in Bolzano as artist in residence as part of their club culture programme Art Club. In return, I wrote a text and an ecercise for a communal workshop.
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2022
Tags: art, club culture, education, international, research
Designing the Social is an exhibition exploring 100 years of socially driven, idiosyncratic ideas about living together. Sometimes out of idealism, often out of pure necessity, alternative design strategies were developed in the pursuit of an equal society. Designers, researchers and curators select and (re)interpret pieces from heritage collections and archives in order to tell an assortment of stories about a century of social design.
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2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
Tags: architecture, art, club culture, research, Rotterdam
RoXY (2022) is a collage film I made that has was commissioned in 2021 by the Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam. The film shows how the revolutionary actions of dada, Cobra and Provo influenced club RoXY. After its opening in 1987, the club is widely celebrated for introducing house music to the Netherlands, and creating a home for numerous creative communities.
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2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
Tags: Amsterdam, art, club culture, film
In 2021, during the nationwide club closure in The Netherlands, photographer Amie Galbraith, scenographer Karl Klomp, artist and musician Gaika Tavares (UK) and artist Juha van 't Zelfde (NL) transformed Gallery -1 of the Nieuwe Instituut into a club for a few months. In their installation in the basement, they used various media to create a collective 'portrait' of club culture.
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2020, 2021, 2022
Tags: art, club culture, research, Rotterdam
What is a critical consciousness? How do the tutors at the Sandberg Instituut encourage a critical consciousness and why is it important – especially now? This essay attempts to unpack rather than answer these questions, through an examination of the teaching approaches of three tutors at the Sandberg: Flavia Dzodan, Jules Sturm and Juha van ‘t Zelfde.
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2019
Tags: Amsterdam, art, education, film
Resolution was a two-year master programme committed to the future of the moving image. It is the sequel to Shadow Channel (2017-2019).
In a period of two years, students met a multitude of artists, academics and activists, working at the intersection of film, music, art, video games and direct action.
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2019, 2020, 2021
Tags: Amsterdam, art, education, film, music, research, technology
In March 2019 Laurens Otto interviewed me for the accreditation of the Sandberg Instituut. At the time I was still programme director of Shadow Channel, and preparing for Resolution. As this interview was for a serious occasion, I wanted to be honest about my experiences at the Sandberg Instituut after two years, as the conditions for good education should be better.
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2019
Tags: Amsterdam, art, education, film
Verdedig Noord is a group of people who take action against the gentrification of Amsterdam-Noord. Verdedig Noord believes that the changes and improvements in Noord should not be at the expense of people who already live here, some of them all of their lives. Moreover, we critically question the so-called upgrading of our neighbourhoods, which in practice only increases the differences between people.
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2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023
Tags: Amsterdam, art, education, film, music, research
Under the title HEREAFTER, the Sonic Acts 2019 exhibition aimed to explore the genesis of our current crisis – and what happens in the hereafter – by reflecting on the issues we are forced to confront on a daily basis: the inequalities caused by colonisation and geostrategic manoeuvring, the challenges brought forth by immigration and the climate crisis, the exploitation and precarity of the work force, and the way technological advancements disrupt and not emancipate.
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2019
Tags: Amsterdam, art, film, music, research, technology
Shadow Channel was a insurrectional platform commissioning, streaming, and distributing counter-narratives created by underrepresented voices, in response to platform capitalism, post-truth politics and the rise of neo-fascism. Students of Shadow Channel operated as a renegade production studio, running a deep stream narrating the real, playing short-and-long-form documentaries, music videos, and live feeds in the shadows of the internet.
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2017, 2018, 2019
Tags: Amsterdam, art, education, film, music, research, technology
On the invititation of Nik Baerten in 2016, I coined a word and wrote a short description about the future of technology for Belgian design platform Wanderful.design. I recently remembered it, and decided to add it here:
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2016
Tags: design, international, research, technology, writing
Progress Bar was a monthly club night dedicated to communal desire and collective joy. Every episode started with a 90-minute talkshow with guests talking about their work in art, music and social action, and the material conditions that shape it. After the talks we moved into the club, and, having spent time listening to the artists talk, dancing to their music was even more magical.
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2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020
Tags: Amsterdam, art, club culture, education, international, music, research, technology
The international group exhibition A screaming comes across the sky focused on the shock and awe of drone warfare. The exhibition, and its associated events, explored the increasingly invisible military technologies that have been responsible for the disappearance of growing numbers of civilians in the past decade, in wars that are largely conducted secretly and unaccountably.
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2014, 2015
Tags: art, film, international, research, technology
From 2014 to 2017 I was artistic director of Lighthouse in Brighton, UK. Lighthouse is an arts organisation that supports and presents the work of creatives who use digital technology in their work – from young people starting out in their careers; to internationally renowned artists.
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2014, 2015, 2016, 2017
Tags: art, club culture, design, education, film, international, music, research, technology
Anonymous was a club night inspired by online hackers who stood up Wikileaks, Edward Snowden and Chelsea Manning. Anonymous tried to hack club culture, by playing with expectactions and conventions during the event. As an act of resistance against the commercialisation of the underground.
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2014
Tags: Amsterdam, art, club culture, music, research, technology
Founded in 1994 to present new developments in electronic and digital art forms, Sonic Acts has gained prominence with its biennial international festival — an intensive art, theory and technology gathering motivated by changes in the ecological, political, technological and social landscape. From 2012 - 2020, I was part of the curatorial team that was responsible for all programmes.
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2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020
Tags: Amsterdam, art, club culture, design, international, music, research, technology
Solidarity was a third-year undergraduate course at the department Design, Art & Technology at ArtEZ Academy of the Arts in Arnhem. Its main goal was for students to create a collaborative work and present this at the end of the year. By doing this, they would have a dress rehearsal for the stressful graduation year ahead, and would have gained the experience of working with their classmates, knowing better what each other's wants, haves and needs are.
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2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021
Tags: art, education, research, technology
De Hallen Haarlem opened the new season with the international group exhibition Dread – Fear in the age of technological acceleration, curated by Juha van ‘t Zelfde, winner of the De Hallen Haarlem Curatorial Grant 2013. The exhibition presented works in various media, and by artists of different generations, that dealt with apprehension and fear as a result of technological innovation.
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2012, 2013
Tags: art, film, music, research, Amsterdam
Viral Radio was a radio programme for new electronic music at Dutch public radio NPS Lijn5 in 2006. Within months of the first radio show it became a nomadic club night, traveling between clubs in Amsterdam, before becoming a monthly night of new electronic music at TrouwAmsterdam, and an irregular series at the Bimhuis.
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2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020
Tags: Amsterdam, club culture, international, music, research
The Bimhuis is the oldest and most important venue in Amsterdam for live jazz and improvised music. It was founded in 1973 by the Bond voor Improviserende Musici (BIM, the union of improvising musicians). They asked Huub van Riel to be their director. He remained the director for 44 years, and he retired in 2017. In 2006, Huub asked me to organise concerts of new electronic music. I went on to do this for 8 years.
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2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014
Tags: Amsterdam, club culture, music, research
When I lived in Rotterdam my favourite cultural venue I would visit was Lantaren/Venster. A multifunctional theatre for arthouse cinema, theatre, dance and music, with a good cafe and a decent kitchen. Here I DJed and organised a series of concerts and club nights from 2005 until 2008, under the artistic leadership of the great Kadir Selçuk.
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2005, 2006, 2007, 2008
Tags: club culture, music, Rotterdam