On Friday, September 11th at 20:00h we are launching the tenth edition of Zevenblad. 

From loads of submissions, we unanimously selected a number of triptychs, ranging from self-portraits with handkerchiefs to dark chairs and drawn landscapes. In the poems we chose, we read about unsafe forests and find ourselves constantly on the move - from doorways to asphalt, and in search of who we are. The result is a remarkably atmospheric issue, designed by Valentina Stahnke of Werkplaats Typografie. Come and listen to the poets and artists!

Participants: Albert Hagenaars, Erik Lucassen, Henriëtte Tavenier, Ivana Soyer, Jaap Blonk, Jeanet Kingma, Sam Ellyn Theunissen, Lique Schoot, Mirjam Kuitenbrouwer, José Witteveen, Reggie Voigtländer, René van der Hoofd, Sandra Kruisbrink, Suzanne de Jong, and Marion Steur.

Zevenblad is an arts and poetry magazine published twice a year by Plaatsmaken. Each issue is celebrated with a festive launch featuring a programme full of poetry. Read more about all editions of Zevenblad here. Press here to buy Zevenblad#10. 

Presentation Zevenblad#10

Plaatsmaken welcomes two new members to its Supervisory Board: Ralph Dassen and Ide André.

With the arrival of Ralph Dassen, and following the departure of Jenny Doest, we once again have an experienced cultural leader from Arnhem on board. In addition, we chose to appoint an extra member with an artistically driven perspective, and we’re delighted to welcome artist Ide André as a new Plaatsmaker. We’re excited to introduce them both — and look forward to the collaboration!

“I’m a visual artist and have been living and working in Arnhem for over ten years. My work originates primarily from painting but increasingly extends into sculpture, performance, video, and sound. Alongside my own practice, I’m one of the regular studio practice tutors in the Fine Art department at AKI ArtEZ in Enschede.

My interest in graphic techniques stems from my background in painting — they’re often direct, physical methods. I also have a fondness for spaces and initiatives that create opportunities to come together: to think, act, and especially make, collectively. Plaatsmaken is one of those places where all this converges. I’m therefore very happy to be able to support that from within the Supervisory Board, wherever needed.”

“I always think there is a mystical understanding between the moon and the street,
like between two sisters who have grown old together
and no longer need any language to communicate with each other.”
— Tove Ditlevsen

“That feeling — that something speaks without words — I recognize it.
In art. In poetry. In silence.
In the way a thought, an image, or a glance suddenly opens something up
and for a moment connects everything.

I’m Ralph Dassen, director of Focus Filmtheater Arnhem,
father of two boys, and three years deep into that one book
that stubbornly refuses to move past thirty thousand words.
I like to move between worlds — between word and image,
between practical organization and losing myself in dreams.

I love art that dares to get lost,
language that both stings and soothes,
colors that are just a bit too bright,
and makers who can’t be tamed.

That’s why I feel at home at Plaatsmaken:
a place where artists experiment, fail, shine —
where things are born that don’t yet have a name.

As a new board member, I hope to contribute to creating space —
space to make, to doubt, to explore.
Space where art and poetry can keep breathing.

And yes — always with a cup of coffee nearby.

I look forward to meeting you all soon, and to truly becoming a Plaatsmaker!”

Nieuwe leden RvT

On Saturday, September 19, the Autumn Gather Together will take place. 

During the Autumn Gather Together on Saturday September 19, art and solidarity collective Rainbow Soulclub will present a series of three new works created during their ploegendienst (residency).

Program (free admission)
15:00 Doors open 
15:30 Dance-in with Perry Person
16:00 Opening remarks by Sunflower Soup and Rainbow Soulclub
16:30 Workshop: making End of summer rolls with Ting Phangpanya
18:00 Soup 
19:00 End

Rainbow Soulclub:
“These are works we have wanted to make or experiment with for some time, but for which there was no time, space, or simply no focus. Or they are earlier works that still needed further development, but never got around to because the next thing was already waiting around the corner. The title Re-arrangement of Priorities was conceived in 2017 by Rainbow Soulclub member Ebby Addo. Since 2017, we have used the title for all our presentations, because it is still relevant and we never really came up with a better one. Rearranging priorities is something we do every day.

Both the personal lives of the members and the Rainbow Soulclub schedule have been quite full in recent years. There have been legal battles over residence permits, illness and bereavement, but also positive things such as getting a first home, a passport, or reconnecting with long-lost family. Sometimes real life takes precedence over art.

At Plaatsmaken, we made a series of 12 hand-painted and printed cotton cloths that together form an empty yearly calendar, with one cloth for each month.

The cloths are multifunctional and can be used as desired: as a piece of clothing, picnic blanket, scarf, curtain, or simply pinned to the wall as a calendar. The empty calendar underscores the desire not to be dictated by circumstances, but to take control of one’s own schedule. Something Rainbow Soulclub members regularly have to contend with.

The cloths are made from used bed sheets, a classic ‘material’ for banners used during demonstrations. With these, we are demonstrating, in a modest way, for freedom of time.

Perry Person, one of the Rainbow Soulclub members, is a dancer by origin. In 1980, he participated in the World Disco Dancing Championships in London. He creates his own dance steps and choreographies, and has developed a notation system for music as well as one for dance. During the work period at Plaatsmaken, he designed dance shirts and dance suits. The choreography is printed on the front of the shirt and is never visible to the dancer wearing it. Ultimately, the dance depicted on it is something you have to ‘know and feel from within’. (PP)

During the Autumn Gather Together there will be a dance-in with Perry, where everyone is invited to wear the shirts and dance suits.

In the presentation, two large paper fans slowly rotate in the space. The fans are made up of texts and drawings from the Rainbow Soulclub archive, meticulously folded into fans. They have a meditative effect, bringing coolness and silence to visitors to the exhibition. The work is based on an earlier piece from 2009.

The presentation is illuminated by coconut lamps from the Rainbow Soulclub archive: a spotlight on an empty calendar, paper fans, and personal dance suits. On freedom, calm, joy, and collaboration.”

This ploegendienst and the Herfstsamenscholing are part of the programme H0ha by Sunflower Soup.

About Rainbow Soulclub
Rainbow Soulclub is an art and solidarity collective founded in 2005. The collective consists of artists and thinkers from diverse social, economic, and cultural backgrounds. The members regularly meet in their shared studio at the drop-in centre of Stichting De Regenboog Groep, an organisation in Amsterdam that supports people experiencing homelessness, addiction, poverty, and the challenges associated with undocumented status.

Working with an organic model that continues to expand and evolve - without agendas, hierarchies, or expectations - the Rainbow Soulclub centres the idea that every person has the capacity for expression, even in complex and undignified circumstances.

Perry Person, Saskia Janssen, Ting Phangpanya & George Korsmit aan het werk met zeefdrukker Simon 

Autumn Gather Together | Rainbow Soulclub

De resultaten van de vierde Ploegendienst, onderdeel van het programma H0ha. 

Ploegendienst 4 | Rizqita Naherta, Not Just a Collective & ROTS
Working period: September - December 2025
Winter Gather Together: 9, 12 and 13 December 2025
On show: January 5 - February 21 2026

Part of the H0Ha programme, curated by the Sunflower Soup collective for Plaatsmaken, Arnhem.

These are the results of the fourth work shift of the multi-year program H0Ha. In H0Ha, the workshops of Plaatsmaken are used to experiment with forms of protest and resistance, through images and language. Poets, visual artists, activists, and publishers are invited to collaborate at Plaatsmaken in so-called ‘Shifts’. H0Ha is curated by the Sunflower Soup collective.

Did you have a grandmother who knitted socks for you? Did she teach you how to do it? And do you have the patience for that time-consuming work?

Handicrafts, such as crocheting, knitting, and sewing, have traditionally been seen as work done by women. It is labor that is often performed at home or in small communities. The maker often remains unpaid and unnamed. This fits into a broader pattern in which women's work is made invisible. At the same time, this labor forms a basis for women to come together, organize, and emancipate themselves.

The Arnhem collective Not just a collective has transformed handicrafts into graphic work. It is precisely this translation that creates a new visibility that makes it possible to reflect on these aspects of handicrafts. Handicrafts are often seen as old-fashioned, but they also carry a history of subversion, resistance, and solidarity.

The artist Rizqita Naherta created an installation that refers to women's emancipation in Indonesia and the important role that the Gerwani movement played in it. This movement is an example of how different forms of emancipation and resistance come together and reinforce each other, because anti-imperialism and decolonization were central to Gerwani. The silkscreen prints feature texts from Gerwani's magazine Api Kartini, printed on images of kebayas (traditional Indonesian clothing for women).

In the practice of artist and poet ROTS, “unravelling” is an important method that is used in both a concrete and metaphorical way: wool from old jumpers is reused for objects with other purposes. A seemingly familiar concept such as “man” is unravelled in order to question what masculinity actually consists of. ROTS created a man cave printed with images of Androgel, a hormone treatment. How should a man behave in his cave? You are welcome to find out for yourself by taking place in the soft interior of this cave, which can also be seen as a manwomb.

What does it mean to pass on handworking techniques in the modern world? Who taught you how to crochet, knit or work with textiles? Did the women you knew mostly do this for leisure, or was it the only work available?

In this textile work, five members of Not Just a Collective — Lu Lin, Femke Kersten, Alessandra Varisco, Doga Gönüllü and Heike Renée de Wit — started from the knowledge and techniques they had learned from their grandmothers. They shared their crochet and knitting skills with each other and with their neighbours at De Nieuwe Hommel community centre. By combining stories and memories from their grandmothers, they translated textile crafts into prints. Using printing techniques such as silkscreen and monoprint, these images were printed onto textiles which were then pieced together. This patchwork is on display in the middle of Plaatsmaken's space. You cannot miss it! The work reminds us of the labour, knowledge and stories of our grandmothers, and of the value of these aspects, which should not be forgotten.

Merawat Api dari Penyihir-Penyihir Militan Kami - Nurturing the Fire of Our Militant Witches

Through the assemblage of archives reactivated from Gerwani’s magazine Api Kartini, the excerpts from the magazine are presented on the many kebaya prints and the bamboo mats within the living room space, as revolutionary passages, poem, and list were recited through the phone and television by exiled relative.

The work holds a space of remembrance for the militant women’s mass organization. Along with the pedagogical activation, the work asks to nurture the memories of Indonesian women’s resistance, and their methods of understanding that are organizing with the masses that is prone to be forgotten in the present, as a result of the historical trauma under Suharto’s regime.

hello I'm a performative male
my mancave is a womb
Dear Virginia, I'm now squatting the room, owning the room, making the room. The that became the (on steroids).

My body on testosterone feels more and more like my own, literally better, stonger. Was it only hormonal dysfunction? Did i just not have enough?

I know the moon, even so far away, was too much for me.

Do I feel more masculine because I'm taking testo or am I masculine and therefore I take testo?

masculinity is transforming
masculinity is tender and often fragile
masculinity relies on stories we tell about how men come into being.
Am I becoming a man by performing the same act again and again and again? I'm never quite reaching, quite being but probably for the better.

Gender is image perpetually cited, repeated, and reproduced. (J. Butler)
this mancave/womb gives shelter to ideas of performative masculinity exposing what Butler calls the machinery of becoming.
Becoming by performing.

my manwomb - an ode to my muses: the matchamen, the soyboys, the softbois, the metromen, the dandies and the hipsters.

Ploegendienst 4

Opening | Thursday, May 28 at 5 p.m.
On view through June 13
Photography | Hussel Zhu

Participants: Yubin Lee, Lotus van Zoggel, Milan van der Stouw, Sam Zanardo, Ouiee Park, Arya Rambod, Merel Hoogendijk, and Chenxin Feng.

In collaboration with BEAR and ArtEZ, we curate the display case located in front of the Palace of Justice in Arnhem. Each year, four students are given the opportunity to present work they have created specifically for this location. This means that visitors can view contemporary work by emerging artists day and night.

At the moment, we are hosting a group exhibition featuring works by artists who have exhibited there over the past two years. Eight presentations of promising work offer an exciting glimpse of what is still to come. Among the pieces on display is a papier-mâché stove with ceramic pots and pans. Hanging in the kitchen are atmospheric photographs of everyday street life in China, alongside carefully executed drawings of hands and birds. There is also an intense video exploring the many ways people push their physical limits in the gym, accompanied by a boxing bag and a mat where visitors can try out some exercises themselves. Across one wall stretches a broad constellation of small, fleeting drawings, scattered and expanding in every direction - sprawling, all over the place.

And outside, on the billboard, an apt summary has been posted: My god I love it!

Arya Rambod (2004, Iran) is an interdisciplinary artist currently based in Zurich. His work explores the relationship between infrastructure, human behaviour, and economy through moving image, installation, and digital media. Combining research and experimentation, he reconfigures infrastructural systems within affective and historical frameworks, exposing their latent tensions.

Lotus Parel van Zoggel is a BEAR Fine Art student at ArtEZ. In her work, she combines ceramics, painting, and papier-mâché sculptures in installations where different disciplines engage in dialogue. She explores themes of family dynamics, social pressure, idealization, nostalgia, and relationships. Her work examines often overlooked domestic labour and the persistence of traditional gender roles within everyday family life.

Merel Hoogendijk (2003) is an artist who works primarily with drawing, and occasionally with painting, animation, and installation. She lingers on curious fleeting moments, like a bird on its eggs, finding consolation in their warmth before they transform and fly by.

Milan van der Stouw (2001) works with materials undergoing their own quiet rebellion. After developing a practice based on collecting and reassembling discarded objects, he now applies this research into potentiality and meaning-making to drawing. Following the pencil’s intention, graphite lines form shapes that emerge from the character of the line itself. Treating sketching as a medium in its own right, he explores openness, emptiness, and form. His interest in materiality also draws him to woodworking and traditional hand tools, which increasingly feature in his mixed-media installations. Besides his individual practice, van der Stouw is part of The Barattolo Projects, a collective focused on sharing artistic knowledge and fostering sustainable, communal living.

Ouiee Seo Yeon Park playfully performs an autopsy on image qualities—resolution, captions, and aftereffects—through paper-based sculptures and films. Revisiting moments of laughter, fascination, and conviction, Ouiee researches how pleasurable and familiar forms can obscure discussion and consent by producing shared desires and beliefs. Their research draws on personal experiences with TV comedy shows, exhibition routes, noise cancelling, and military Armed Forces Day festivals.

Sam Zanardo is a visual and performance artist from Italy, currently based in the Netherlands. Coming from a background in dance and martial arts, their practice centres on endurance, constriction, and repetition, investigating how transformation can occur within predetermined structures and rules. Through physically demanding actions and the use of mass-media platforms, they address subjectivity as a process of constant decomposition and reconfiguration. Their current work explores storytelling through performance, filmmaking, and writing, drawing on folklore, rituality, and magic in Southern Italy, where religious traditions, personal narratives, and media archives intertwine.

Yubin Lee explores questions of existence, transformation, and self-reflection through drawing. Rooted in the Buddhist art of Thangka and meditative practice, Lee’s work unfolds through Saerang-i (새랑이), an autobiographical character navigating growth, desire, acceptance, and consciousness. While grounded in personal experience, the work also engages with political, environmental, and social structures, challenging dualism, hierarchy, stereotypes, and anthropocentrism. Through detailed, contemplative imagery created with materials such as Hanji, ink, and rice paper, Lee invites viewers into spaces of introspection and reflection.

Fleeting Emotions

On the 18th & 20th of September, the Autum Gather Together took place.

Koen Kievits and Django van Ardenne photographed the Autumn Gather Together, and Plaatsmaker Maurice captured everything on video. You can view the footage at the bottom of this page.

Autumn had just begun to change the colors. In the soft September light, we celebrated the transition into the new season. On Thursday, we walked through Klarendal to see the utility boxes that Harmen Liemburg had decorated with designs based on the favorite things of local residents. Everything was color-coordinated. Some neighbors had even created small gardens around the boxes in front of their doors, complete with matching flowers. Upon returning, we were served Equinox soup made of pumpkin and ginger, with roasted sage croutons. At the table, Sunflower Soup led a workshop where participants could draw on edible paper. Cats were drawn - filled with worry and tension. When everyone was finished, the drawings - and with them the worries - were eaten.

By midday on the second day of the Gather Together, it was already bustling at Plaatsmaken. Periphery Center led a workshop involving reading, listening, writing, and ultimately creating a large collaborative work. Participants sat in a circle and discussed how to transform their anger and political disappointment into something constructive. Together, they created a large blueprint, now on display as inspiration in the Compost Heap in the corner of the space.

Outside, the Hospitality Club filled the billboard with brightly colored monoprints. Here and there, a windmill appeared - an early hint at the upcoming Windmill Project, in which they’ll create sails for the blades. After these activities, we enjoyed delicious banana bread in preparation for the basement rave.

It was time for the presentation of Ploegendienst 3. The work of Margreet Sweerts was presented through a performance. Two flag bearers approached the audience from the entrance, waving wildly and then calmly locking eyes. The banners flapped vigorously in the wind. Later, they were tied together into one large flag—surrender and acceptance.

Emmeline de Mooij took us on a hilarious journey through her bodily transformation - from standing still in her body to exuberantly celebrating and sharing it. Moni Zwitserloot performed equally physical texts, with subjects such as worms, maggots, and loose cuticles. Hussel Zhu stood on the millstone and spoke in Chinese about his work. The fact that no one understood what he was saying was no issue - we followed blindly, guided by his passionate explanation.

We headed to the basement for the launch of the collaboratively made music video. For the occasion, the entire basement had been wrapped in black plastic, with a smoke machine, laser lights, and a DJ. We saw Margreet, Emmeline, Hussel, and Moni scream, dance, move, and summon and battle their demons. Then it was our turn to face our own, to dance, arms in the air, helped along by the music and the occasional fitting cocktail, like a Dark & Stormy.

The Autumn Gather Together is part of H0ha, a program in which poets, visual artists, activists, and publishers are invited to (co-)work in rotating “Shifts” (Ploegendiensten) at Plaatsmaken. Each season includes a Gathering Together, in which activities are bundled into a vibrant mix of artistic and social experiment. For this program we collaborate with artist collective Sunflower Soup and curator Lenn Cox.

ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS

Moni Zwitserloot is a writer and performer. Key elements in their work include physicality, transformation, and community. Being strange, muck, or weird is celebrated through the use of gore elements and magical realism. Current obsessions: insects, fungi and bodily fluids.

Hussel Zhu is a visual artist, short fiction writer, and researcher. In his printmaking, he often uses the image of a dancing frog—inspired by the Japanese ink painting Birds, Beasts, and Human Play, and the animal paintings of Bada Shanren—where animals satirize those in power.

The Feministische Handwerkpartij is a political feminist artist movement that is dedicated to studying, repairing, speaking, patching up, unlearning and mending. It is initiated by visual artist Emmeline de Mooij and performance director Margreet Sweerts.

Periphery Center is a collective for artistic practice and shared study. They meet to inspire one another and co-create the reality they dream of through bookmaking, graphic design, publishing, curating, art and writing. Periphery Center consists of Leana Boven, Pelumi Adejumo, Yusser Al Obaidi, Jeanine van Berkel en Yessica Deira.

For our small-scale educational projects, we collaborate with Hospitality Club, consisting of Mirka Farabegoli and Krista Burger. These projects involve local primary schools, young people, children, ArtEZ students, MBO students, and neighborhood residents.

With thanks to the Mondriaanfonds and the Municipality of Arnhem.

Looking back | Autumn Gather Together

The results of the third Ploegendienst, part of the H0ha program.

Ploegendienst 3 | Moni Zwitserloot, Hussel Zhu & de Feministische Handwerkpartij
Work period: June – September 2025
Autumn Gather Together: 18 – 20 September 2025
On view: 22 September – 5 December 2025

H0ha is a program in which poets, visual artists, activists, and publishers are invited to (co-)work in so-called “Ploegendiensten” (Shifts) at Plaatsmaken.
Each season concludes with a Gathering Together, during which activities are brought together into a vibrant mix of artistic and social experiment.
For this program, we collaborate with the artist collective Sunflower Soup and curator Lenn Cox. The Autumn Gather Together took place from 18 to 20 September.

Ololyga is an Ancient Greek word that refers to the 
high-pitched, horrifying, blood-curdling screams of a woman*. 
These are sounds that are emitted during intense pain or intense pleasure.

The overarching theme of this Ploegendienst is how the body can serve as a space for resistance. This resistance is not bombastic and in-your-face as we are perhaps accustomed to, but rather modest, subtle and subversive. Through etchings, textiles, prints, texts and other interventions in the space, the artists demonstrate how they challenge societal norms and celebrate bodies, both human and non-human, that do not conform to the status quo. These works demand the viewer's attention and concentration, inviting them to engage with them, participate, question them, and adjust their own expectations.

In her essay 'Gender of Sound', Anne Carson describes how special festivals were held in classical Greek culture where women could make these sounds outside the city limits, the domain of civilised men. Men, who use reason as a barrier to keep emotions at bay, want nothing to do with people who leak on all sides. The person with two 'mouths', one above and one below. One with which unspeakable things are done, and one with which unspeakable things are said. With all their frightening, uncontrollable physicality and bodily fluids, this person is closer to the animal kingdom than to the world of developed humans, oh oops, cisgender men.

The etchings by Emmeline de Mooij (Feministische Handwerk Partij), featuring the figure of Sheela Na Gig, illustrate this very directly. We see an old body that is as much vulva as mouth, with hands that spread the genitals open. This figure was often carved in stone and placed on buildings, primarily medieval churches in Ireland. The reason for this is unclear, but what we do know is that the figure predates Christianity. They were considered a witch-like figure associated with twilight, transition and transformation. Embodying death as much as life. Through Sheela Na Gig, Emmeline questions current issues, such as who can claim ownership of their sexuality. Is it reserved for young bodies? Why are we not surprised when an older man displays his sexuality, yet turn up our noses when an older woman does the same?

In their text 'Vruchtvlees', Moni Zwitserloot offers a different perspective on the body. They employ the horror trope of 'gore' to challenge our perception of what the body can experience. Moni began by asking whether it is possible to make etchings using bodily fluids. This then gave rise to their text. Drawing inspiration from the everyday sensation of pulling a piece of skin off your fingernail, the text takes us on a journey of sensations that far surpasses this experience. The text can be read on the back of the prints, which hang gracefully from thin chains suspended from the ceiling.

Drawing inspiration from the Japanese Chōjū-giga scrolls, in which monkeys, frogs, and rabbits take on human roles, Hussel Zhu employs the frog (or toad) as a subtle means of criticising contexts in which political expression is suppressed. His etchings are like a 'knife in water': sharp yet restrained. We see frogs in many guises: disguised as bodhisattvas (in some forms of Buddhism, this is a being striving for enlightenment), nailed in the corner like a curse on a piece of paper, or hanging from the willow branch of Guanyin, the goddess of mercy. At the back of the room is a large piece of work in which a frog is surrounded by yellow and gold lines. These colours are associated with power in China. Visitors are invited to challenge the concept of power itself by leaving their mark on the work. 

Visitors are also challenged by the work of Margreet Sweerts (Feministische Handwerkpartij). White flags bearing etchings in the corners stand motionless in the space. This piece awaits activation by two people. They want to feel the resistance of the air and serve as an extension of the bodies that set them in motion. The piece calls for movement together and stems from the question: what do we surrender to? Do we submit to harsh forces that squeeze all humanity out of us? Or do we surrender to a society that seeks to render disabled, feminine, queer and trans bodies invisible?

The white flag is often considered taboo in contemporary activism, particularly when used by white people from a Western perspective. However, if you look closely or hold the flags in your hands, you will see that they are not actually white. They have a tactile history. They are not passive; they call for connection and reflection on the body of the person wearing them. While you are in the Plaatsmaken space, you might like to ask another visitor to accompany you outside, where you can tie the flags together and experience how the wind plays with the fabric.

The four participants have collectively made a music video based on their shared experience of the suppression of raw energy. In the video, they allow the sounds inside them at that moment to come to the fore. Is this perhaps a modern version of ololyga? Do we still feel uncomfortable expressing these kinds of sounds? Are they permitted within the city limits?

*In this day and age, 'woman' could refer to anyone who does not identify as a cisgender man. A cisgender person is someone whose gender identity corresponds to their birth sex.

Ploegendienst 3

The results of Ploegendienst 5, part of the H0ha programme.

Ploegendienst 5 | Jivan van der Ende, Merel Nijhuis and Queer Collective Workers’ Union
Work period: January – March 2026
Spring Gather Together: March 21, 2026
On show: March 21 – May 23, 2026

Part of the H0ha program, curated by the collective Sunflower Soup. In this multi-year program, the workshops of Plaatsmaken are used to experiment with forms of protest and resistance through image and language. Poets, visual artists, activists, and publishers are invited to collaborate at Plaatsmaken in so-called 'Ploegendiensten' (work shifts). 

About Ploegendienst 5
Artists Merel Nijhuis, Jivan van der Ende and the Queer Collective Workers’ Union, address the visible and invisible aspects of labour, and the emotional and physical pain it comes with.

Within H0ha, questions around labour are recurring. When we chose the word Ploegendienst (‘work shift’), we were attracted to its proletarian or even socialist connotation. Of course there is a romantic side to this choice, but it also helped us to think about the way in which the different kinds of labour were compensated. In the first year of Hoha, all participants received the same hourly rate, but this turned out to be difficult to handle, because what precisely is labour? When does activist or artistic labour stop and start? And maybe, the difficulty is even more fundamental. Because etymologically, the word labour has the following background:

‘c. 1300, "a task, a project" (such as the labors of Hercules); later "exertion of the body; trouble, difficulty, hardship" (late 14c.), from Old French labor "toil, work, exertion, task; tribulation, suffering" (12c., Modern French labeur), from Latin labor "toil, exertion; hardship, pain, fatigue; a work, a product of labor," a word of uncertain origin.’

That brings us to the hardships that seem to be inseparable from facing uneasy truths, which in turn seem to be inseparable from doing activism. It might be justified to say that the labour of Ploegendienst 5 consists both of printmaking and dealing with pain.

Thanks to the Mondriaan Fund and the Municipality of Arnhem.

Merel Nijhuis
During the Shift at Plaatsmaken, Merel created zines combining text, cyanotype, and screen printing. The work revolves around her experience of (crip) time, what it means to be “healthy” in our current political climate, well-being, joy, and contradictions. Each zine is slightly different, making them as unique as the embodied experience of the moment in which they were produced: some were made during periods of intense headaches or while experiencing recurring tingling sensations in her fingertips, while others were created while enjoying the first spring sun.

Merel Nijhuis is a crip-queer writer, artist, and editor. They write experimental poetry and are inspired by critical theory, processes of cripping and queering, unreliable memory, and embodied experiences. Their work has been published in literary journals such as nY and Hard//hoofd.

Jivan van der Ende
During the Shift, Jivan van der Ende surrenders to her fascination with reflective workwear. She explores the drama and camp of reflective inks to see what happens when pots find lids, when there is light in the darkroom, and when everything is laid bare.

Jivan van der Ende is a visual artist who analyzes and deconstructs symbols of power structures and social constructs. Her eclectic method is based on endless collecting, documenting, tearing apart, and reusing.

An essential part of her practice is cross-gender research into clothing. During the Shift, the artist’s project was gradually taken over and ultimately completely hijacked by her fetish for reflective workwear.

Queer Collective Workers’ Union
presents its founding letter on a billboard, based on a contradiction: a collective that demands its members “work alone.” Their counter-archive is an online publishing tool using a “Seed Packet” template. During their gathering, the billboard becomes the center of the space, the archive is projected, and an information table offers “Seed Packet” posters and union merchandise. Members of the union lead conversations and connect their specific conflict to broader struggles. The event marks their public launch. The infrastructure for collective authorship is under construction.

Ploegendienst 5

We let go of the traditional idea of an exhibition with a start and end point. Instead, we are organizing ploegendiensten with artists, writers and collectives.

Every season, there is a Samenscholingsweek, in which activities are bundled into an exuberant whole of artistic and social experiment. For this program, we collaborate with art collective Sunflower Soup and curator Lenn Cox. The first Samenscholingsweek took place in the week of March 17-22. The results of this first Shiftwork and Samenscholing can still be seen until mid-June.

Spring Samenscholing: March 17 - 22, 2025

During this first ploegendienst, Sunflower Soup, Zaban Razdar and Notshitprint have been working in Plaatsmaken for the past few months. A central question in the work created during this first ploegendienst is how the West views the way in which oppressed people have fought for their liberation in different places and at different times, or are still doing so.

Art collective Sunflower Soup emerged from a shared activist commitment and an urgent need to explore what art can mean beyond the personal, isolated individual. The collective is driven by a series of lively questions: can working in community foster a less passive, more participatory experience of art? How can art contribute to the politics of the everyday in which people relate to each other and to the more-than-human, planetary world? How do we reconcile the importance of activism with a poetic visual language that allows for humor, paradox, and ambiguity?

Lenn Cox is a community organizer, artist, educator, and program maker. She explores solidarity economies by immersing herself in self-organized learning-working-living environments, many with an ecofeminist and queer heart. She uses clothing and navigation maps to carry the exchanges and stories she collects. Lenn initiates gatherings that enable collective learning. An ongoing investigation into how we organize ourselves, what we can learn from each other, and what is at stake in the cultural field and beyond.

Zaban Razdar is in the holy land to support the indigenous population in their fight against ethnic cleansing together with other activists. In between, he picks up the pen to write off the Palestinian he is in love with.

Printing house for social justice. Notshitprint is a non-commercial printing house for activists and grassroots projects.

Tabea Nixdorff is an artist, typographer, and researcher. Her artistic practice includes (self) publishing, sound and language-based performances, collaborative learning, and social gatherings.

Anne Krul is an Afropese visual artist, poet, archivist, and activist. She was a member of Strange Fruit, an organization for young queer people from diverse cultural backgrounds (1989-2002).

Archival Textures is a publication series that gives space to unlikely finds from traditional archives, local community archives, conversations and personal collections, to find narratives from the past that can feed our current vocabularies of resistance and solidarity.

The Indian-Dutch theatre maker and storyteller Abhishek Thapar makes visual and intimate performances on the border between documentary and fiction. His performance can be seen at Plaatsmaken as part of the collaborative project Stadsatelier Arnhem.

For our small-scale educational projects we work together with the Hospitality Club, which consists of Mirka Farabegoli and Krista Burger. We involve primary schools from the neighbourhood, young people, children, ArtEZ students and MBO students and residents.

The Ploegendiensten and Samenscholingen are part of the programmes H0ha (by Sunflower Soup) and Time Out Tune In (by Lenn Cox). Read more about the programs here.

Ploegendienst 1

We are letting go of the traditional idea of an exhibition with a fixed beginning and end. Instead, we organize Ploegendiensten (residencies) for artists, writers, and collectives.

Every season features a Gather Together Week, during which activities are united into a vibrant whole of artistic and social experiment. For this program, we work with artist collective Sunflower Soup and program maker Lenn Cox.
The second Gather Together Week (Summer Gather Together) took place during the week of 21–29 June. The results of this second Ploegendienst and Gather Together will be on view until mid-September.

Ploegendienst 2 | Periphery Center & Girls Like Us
Working period: April/May/June 2025
Summer Gather Together: 21 - 29 June 2025
Open to visit: 30 June - 5 September 2025

About the Ploegendienst
Collective Periphery Center researched during their residency (Ploegendienst) how the collective can be a space for ideas, desires and gatherings within the current social and political landscape. Spiralling around the question what conditions make collectives possible and how, like the body, this is changeable: it can transform, grow older and develop different needs.

Periphery Center invited publishing collective Girls Like Us to join them from their years of experience to deepen this process and work together towards a public workshopping sweatpants session on Sunday June 29. Read more about this session FROM THE MARGIN TO THE SEAM in the program.

During their working period at Plaatsmaken, Jeanine van Berkel, Yusser al Obaidi, Yessica Deira, and Pelumi Adejumo of Periphery Center explored what it means to work collectively. Rooted in shared diasporic experience, they wrote, played, and experimented with cyanotype, silkscreen, and graphic design. Working with silkscreen and print became, for them, a journey of return, a repetition, a movement between presence and disappearance. Each print holds an echo of something that once was, but never returns quite the same. The blur in pigment and the rhythm of layering speak to memories of a land, a place, a time. Faded and resurfacing, again and again. In Yoruba culture, indigo is the color of love. The patterns and shapes throughout the space echo traditional Nigerian textile dyeing techniques. Once both sacred material and currency, indigo carried deep cultural meaning. Through symbolic motifs and patterns, a visual language emerged used to convey messages on clothing, express status and the bonds between people.

The collaborative process of Periphery Center is embedded in their work. One begins, another holds the grid, someone else completes the line or fills in the color. The piece moves between hands, like memory: shared, shifted, held. Phonetic similarities across languages create poetic bridges across cultures. Throughout the space, the word refugee/visitor in both Arabic (Laje’) [لاجئ] and Yoruba (Àlejò) are referenced. Inspired by the root structure of the Arabic language, you find motifs derived from the root ل ج ء • (l j ʔ) 1. related to refugeprinted on plaid plastic bags. Informed by thinkers like Édouard Glissant, they engaged in conversations about what it means to come from a place where you are always a guest, always arriving, always returning. How this movement might, over time, become a form of grounding instead of mourning.

The color blue carries more than nostalgia or tradition. Their visual language draws on the faded blue posters of old travel agencies, once vibrant, now ghosted by time, their original tones erased. Periphery Center draws inspiration from the design and visual cultures of the Global South, aesthetics often dismissed as kitsch or amateur by the standards of Western modernism. Here, these visual languages are, similar to the many languages underneath their tongues, celebrated and reimagined as Vernacular Diasporic Design: layered, hybrid, and resonant.

This working period (Ploegendienst) is part of the Time Out / Tune In program that program maker Lenn Cox has curated around Plaatsmaken's shared household. Time Out / Tune In connects the cyclical nature of time and its seasons, with a call to slow down! The program explores with multiple generations how we can organize together, what we can learn from each other and what is at stake in the cultural field and beyond. Dancing through chosen families, kindred spirits and ancestral matters. 
Read more about the program Time Out / Tune In.

Periphery Center is an emerging collective for artistic practice and shared study. Here, we center the margin as the main site for the production of a counter hegemonic discourse that is not just found in words but in habits of being and in the way one lives.* Here, we meet to inspire one another and co-create the reality we dream of through bookmaking, (graphic) design, publishing, curating, art and writing.

*bell hooks, “Marginality as site of resistance”

Girls Like Us is a queer feminist magazine made by and featuring an ever expanding community of queers from all sides of the spectrum within the arts, culture and activism. The magazine was founded by Jessica Gysel. It mixes politics with pleasure and maps collaborative routes toward a non-patriarchy. To actively build community, Girls Like Us also organizes events ranging from film screenings, exhibiti­ons, talks, workshops, presentations, pop-up shops, to parties. Katja Mater is involved as editor.

Lenn Cox
Lenn Cox is a community organizer, artist, educator, and program maker. She explores solidarity economies by immersing herself in self-organized environments for learning, working, and living—many with an ecofeminist and queer core. She uses clothing and navigation cards to carry the exchanges and stories she gathers. Lenn initiates gatherings that enable collective learning. This is an ongoing research into how we organize ourselves, what we can learn from each other, and what is at stake in the cultural field and beyond. 

Ploegendienst 2

For several years, Plaatsmaken has been programming contemporary visual art in the display case (De Vitrine) standing in front of the Palace of Justice in Arnhem.

Based on the idea that encountering art in unexpected places can add an extra sparkle to your day, in collaboration with the BEAR (Fine Art) department at ArtEZ, (former) students are given the opportunity to submit a proposal for the showcase. This benefits both parties: young artists gain experience exhibiting, and Plaatsmaken is thus assured of programming young talent directly from the academy.

On display in the showcase from September 1st: Kajetan Oniszk

Kajetan graduated from BEAR in 2026 and has selected six prints from his graduation work for the showcase. The work is titled Gaza Comics (2026).

What we see is an archive of thin, horizontal screenshots of the recently updated satellite images of Gaza on Google Maps. Where life, stories, cities, and nature once existed, only rubble, desert, and traces of bulldozers remain.

Read more about the De Uitspraak showcase project here.

De Uitspraak | Kajetan Oniszk

Location: Café De Kurk, Steenstraat 68, Arnhem

On August 22nd, a screening of the film Wij Zijn Het Archief (We Are The Archive) will take place at cafe De Kurk. Afterwards we'll have a conversation with Joy Brandsma, one of the directors.

This film screening is part of the finissage from POETS IN THE KITCHEN REVISITED, by anne krul and Tabea Nixdorff. You are also warmly invited to join us for the first part of the finissage at Plaatsmaken, starting at 15:00h.

SATURDAY 22 AUGUST 18:00 | Film screening and conversation at queer café De Kurk, Arnhem 
Wij Zijn Het Archief / We Are The Archive, directed by Duizend Kleuren, 33 minutes, Dutch spoken with English subtitles, Dark Matter Collective, 2024. 

“We Are the Archive takes us into the hidden past of the black queer community in the Netherlands. What connects us to the generations before us, and what can we learn from each other? In this film a group of young queer people of color meet the women of Stichting Mil Colores, who have been creating meeting places for women of different ethnic backgrounds and gender preferences since 2000. A story about identity, resilience and a history still in motion.”

About POETS IN THE KITCHEN REVISITED 
During their residency, anne krul and Tabea Nixdorff worked together as an intergenerational duo, using poetry, archival wandering, silkscreening and book making as artistic tools and mediums to explore broader questions about how to break silences, as a way to create and reshape supportive structures and practice solidarity and allyship.

Read more about anne and Tabea’s Ploegendienst residency here. 

Image: Duizend Kleuren / Dark Matter Collective
Board member Ligya Wachter shows photos from Mil Colores’ first party

Film screening | We Are The Archive

During the Summer Gather Together on June 20th we opened the new presentation POETS IN THE KITCHEN REVISITED.

POETS IN THE KITCHEN REVISITED | ANNE KRUL & TABEA NIXDORFF
June 20 - August 22, 2026

Saturday, July 25th: Meet & Read with anne & Tabea
15:00 - 17:00 | This afternoon anne & Tabea will be at Plaatsmaken. You're very welcome to join them at the round table to read, talk and exchange. 

Saturday, August 22nd: Finissage & film screening @ de Kurk
15:00 – 17:00 I Collective Reading 
Bring a companion text or book that supports or inspires you. With cake and (cold) tea.
Sign up appreciated: mail@tabeanixdorff.com
18:00 I Film Screening and Talk at Queer Bar De Kurk 
Together we watch the film We Are The Archive and have a conversation with one of the makers Joy Brandsma


ABOUT THE RESIDENCY
During their residency, anne krul and Tabea Nixdorff worked together as an intergenerational duo, using poetry, archival wandering, silkscreening and book making as artistic tools and mediums to explore broader questions about how to break silences, as a way to create and reshape supportive structures and practice solidarity and allyship.

anne krul and Tabea Nixdorff met through their shared commitment to archiving the traces of marginalized queer and feminist lives—first in 2021, when Tabea encountered part of anne's archive at Atria in Amsterdam, home to the International Archive of the Women's Movement. It quickly became clear to them that their common interests also extend to poetry, literature, collage making, creative collaboration and social gatherings. 

For their Time Out / Tune In residency at Plaatsmaken, anne and Tabea explored their ways of co-creating further by using language as material to engage with, and to spark conversations around the questions that drive their work: Where and how do we find the courage to break through internalized silences? How can language, as an artistic medium, help to create or reshape supportive structures? How does solidarity emerge? Which archival traces in queer, people of color, and feminist archives are sources of unruly knowledges to us?

One book from the archives, which anne and Tabea have brought as a companion to their Ploegendienst is Zwart aan Zet (published by the Groep Zwarte Vrouwen Nijmegen, 1985). A sentence from the book’s introduction formed the central theme of the residency:

“Breaking a silence within yourself and a silence around you is such an act. It’s really not an easy one because: will the sound you produce resonate? And where does it arrive, and how long does it take before you hear the echo?”

Interested in the connection between a printed book, orality and space, the duo researched the questions above through reading and writing, as well as silkscreening and bookmaking—working with Plaatsmaken’s facilities and skilled workshop facilitators. Another important aspect was the collaboration with a weekly, Arnhem-based art workshop called Open Atelier. anne and Tabea wanted to deepen their engagement with their research questions by co-creating with this local group for which the connection between healing and art is central.  

For the Summer Gather Together, anne and Tabea present their residency research and works in the installation POETS IN THE KITCHEN REVISITED, which is both a nod to an artistic intervention from anne’s archives, as well as a broader acknowledgement of feminist efforts to challenge the hierarchies of where art belongs, where it is created. By questioning what words and worlds get to code and fixate these definitions, kitchen tables, sickbeds or support groups become spaces of resistant knowledges and creativity, where lived experiences translate into an errantry and openness that embraces a poetics of deviance.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM
The residency with anne krul en Tabea Nixdorff is part of the Time Out / Tune In program that Lenn Cox curated around Plaatsmaken's shared household. Read more about the program Time Out / Tune In.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS 
Tabea Nixdorff is an artist, typographer and researcher based in Arnhem. Her artistic practice involves writing, (self)publishing, sound and language based performances, collaborative learning and social gatherings. Often working with/in archives, or libraries, Tabea’s works delve into micro-histories while touching upon broader themes such as omissions and distortions in historical narratives, embodied knowledges, queer belonging and a feminist poetics of error.

Her artist’s books are held in several public collections, and her work has been featured in group exhibitions at IHLIA LGBTI Heritage, Amsterdam (2024) and A Tale of A Tub, Rotterdam (2025). In 2023, she founded the publication series Archival Textures, which centers on (re)distributing archival texts and ephemera, namely of queer and feminist archives.

anne krul is an Afropean visual artist, poet, archivist and activist. Among many other queer and feminist groups including the International Lesbian Information Service (ILIS) and ZAMI, krul was a member of Strange Fruit, an organisation for young queer people from different cultural backgrounds (1989-2002). anne krul is invested in creative discourse, activism, art and poetry to implement change: breaking silences, empowering each other, exploring co-creation. 

As an artist, anne krul has participated in the group exhibitions Diasporic Self – Black Togetherness as Lingua Franca (Framer Framed, 2019), and Proud Aliens (2021), Hybrid Garden (2023) and Metamorphosis Manifesting (2024), as part of the artist community Open Atelier at Framer Framed, Amsterdam. In 2025, the unconventional retrospective ANAGRAMMA TICS featured the full scope of krul’s practice for the first time—anagram poetry, art making, education, organising, collaboration and intergenerational dialogue—at A Tale of A Tub in Rotterdam.

Lenn Cox is a community organizer, artist, educator and program maker. Lenn explores solidarity economies by immersing herself in self-organised learning-working-living environments. Many with an eco-feminist and queer heart. Lenn initiates and organizes relational spaces and structures that facilitate collective learning. While engaging navigation cards and clothes as correspondence to transfer the exchanges she collects as topics of conversation. An ongoing research into how we organize ourselves, what we can learn from each other, and what is at stake in the cultural field and beyond.

POETS IN THE KITCHEN REVISITED

We have some new workshops planned for the upcoming months.

You can sign up for the following workshops:

Friday, August 21st | Workshop book binding (beginners)
Saturday, Sept 5th | Workshop screen printing (beginners)
Saturday, October 10th | Workshop screen printing (beginners)
Saturday, October 17th | Workshop book binding (experienced)

You can read more about the workshops (and how to sign up) here.

New workshops

As part of Sonsbeek 2026, the workshop ‘Pressing Matters’ will take place on Wednesday, August 26. This is a collaboration between writers’ collective Loesje and Plaatsmaken.

Writing and screen printing workshop 'Pressing Matters'
When | August 26, 11:00u - 17:00u
Entrance | €15 (SOLD OUT)
Location | Plaatsmaken

This workshop is sold out. It is possible to join the waiting list, you can send an email to info@plaatsmaken.nl.

Loesje is a writers’ collective and fictional character based in Arnhem, known for the thousands of posters featuring creative, critical yet optimistic slogans on socio-political and cultural developments. Loesje loves to ask difficult questions and bring people together, qualities that also apply to Plaatsmaken. You need both a sharp pen and printing techniques to make posters. And when you consider that both have been active in Arnhem since the 1980s, it’s actually strange that they’ve never collaborated before…

On August 26, that’s all set to change; because Loesje and Plaatsmaken will be pooling their expertise and inviting you to join in. First, Loesje will take you inside her mind to show you how to write those Loesje texts. Afterwards, Plaatsmaken will give you a crash course in screen printing. You’ll also learn about the editorial process that’s part of every Loesje writing session. And finally, both disciplines will come together, and you’ll get to print Loesje texts. You can print on fabric, for example, so if you bring along a suitable T-shirt, pillowcase or cotton bag, you can create your own unique Loesje garment!

'Pressing Matters' | Workshop Loesje

Plaatsmaken has been showcasing contemporary visual art in the display case in front of the Palace of Justice in Arnhem for several years now. 

This is based on the idea that encountering art in unexpected places can be inspirational in every day life.

In collaboration with the BEAR (Fine Art) department at ArtEZ, current and former students will have the opportunity to submit a proposal for the showcase. This benefits both parties: young artists gain experience exhibiting, and Plaatsmaken is thus assured of programming young talent directly from the academy.

On display in the showcase from May 22th:  Lotus van Zoggel

Lotus Parel van Zoggel combines disciplines such as ceramics and painting in her work. Her style is characterized by an expressionistic and playful approach, often with a touch of irony. She draws inspiration from her everyday life and explores themes such as family, memories, and human connection.

De Uitspraak | Lotus van Zoggel

Starting in January, we will open our doors every Saturday! You're welcome to visit our exhibition between 1:00 PM and 5:00 PM.

Now showing: the results from the fourth Ploegendienst. Read more about the program here.

Open on Saturdays

For several years now, Plaatsmaken has been programming contemporary visual art in the display case situated in front of the Palace of Justice in Arnhem.

This initiative stems from the idea that unexpectedly encountering art can be insprirational in every day life.

On display from March 25th 2024: Yubin Lee

The display case will feature the work of South Korean artist Yubin Lee. Lee is a third-year BEAR student at ArtEZ and works across a wide range of media, including painting, sculpture, video, and performance art.

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De Uitspraak | Kajetan Oniszk

For several years, Plaatsmaken has been programming contemporary visual art in the display case (De Vitrine) standing in front of the Palace of Justice in Arnhem.