24.09 Sharing Roots
concert by Tonali Duo
The Tonali Duo brings to the stage new versions and adaptations of Latinoamerican traditional musics.
With Alice Allegri, former Lely tenant, on flute and piccolo, and Wendy Palomeque on marimba, this duo offers a beautiful and energetic combination of sounds and the rhythmical richness of the music of Mexico, Guatemala, Cuba, Venezuela and Brazil.
28.09 13:00 The Diorama of Accidental Temples (3.0)
workshop by Anna Kakhiani
(4 hours)
In dark times, we are seeking for light. I am inviting you to join a third edition of the workshop ‘The Diorama of Accidental Temples’
which I will host during the exhibition ‘Leaving Space’.
We will recall moments of insights and illuminations, existentially important moments, moments of sudden inspiration that have happened to us and create a shared diorama of these powerful moments, building a network of connections with strangers and finding something common and surprisingly new in ourselves and others. The practice involves sincerity, attentiveness and communication.
First, we will address our memory, then work on the mapping stage. After a short tea/snack break, we will do sketching and move on to the final part - creating a light installation. The result of the workshop will remain in the exhibition space.
Video and photo documentation of previous workshops, as well as the registration form, are available via the link.
Registration is obligated and the max number of participants is 15.
The workshop is free of charge, but if you register please take it seriously and let me know if you cannot come.
Please arrive in advance to find the right building and spot, so we can start in time. You can find the Broedplaats Lely easily through google maps or other navigation applications. When you arrive at the site you will see the posters which will help you find the entrance. Once inside there is a map and a printed leaflet that can help you with navigation. The workshop will be in a space called “the lab” which is located on the ground floor in the west wing of the building.
The workshop will take around 4 hours (1 break).
Please take some snacks with you, I will arrange some tea and lemonade.
You can register for the workshop through this link
On this day the exhibition will be open from 12:00-13:00 and 15:00-20:00.
more info
28.09 16:00 Precarity of Space + Precarious Manifesto of Precarity
panel talk & launch
by
Tatjana Macic
(2,5 hours)
We aim to discuss the precariat of spaces for art & design practices in the city, each from a lived perspective. How can we make each other stronger? What can we learn from the Lely? In addition, Tatjana Macic will initiate her artistic project “Precarious Manifesto of Precarity”. The vision is to co-create a shared and fluid manifesto about the precarity of space with the panel talk guests and the visitors collectively. The manifesto will be published on Tatjana’s website and serve as a departure point for future projects.
more info
Moderator
Tatjana Macic, artist with studio in the Lely
Panel participants
Sophia Patat, business director de Appel
Marina Christodoulidou, curatorial research fellow de Appel
Bas van de Geyn, interim director Urban Resort
Jeannette Slütter, co-director Platform BK; Artist from the Lely
On this day the exhibition will be open from 12:00-13:00 and 15:00-20:00.
You can find the Broedplaats Lely easily through google maps or other navigation applications. When you arrive at the site you will see the posters which will help you find the entrance. Once inside there is a map and a printed leaflet that can help you with navigation. The panel talk will be held in a space called “the main hall” which is located on the 1st floor. It’s the first space when you exit the staircase.
1.10 14:00 Dance Therapy
workshop
by
Hannah Rojer
(1,5 hours)
This practice is a combination of somatic therapy, yoga elements and the psychology of self-empowerment. We move through any emotions left unprocessed to let go of anything weighing us down and holding us back in our lives.
more info
In this self-care ritual you will have the chance to explore different healing tools you can use whenever you may need them to energize yourself, calm your nervous system or digest your emotions.
The theme we will delve into for this session is confidence embodiment.
Wear something you feel confident in and that allows you to move comfortably and freely.
If you have a yoga mat, please bring it. If you do not, please inform us so we can bring one for you.
If you’d like, bring a journal and pen.
This is a donation-based practice, all the proceeds will be donated to support the Sudanese American Physicians Association, providing aid during the humanitarian crisis in Sudan.
To sign up, send an email to hannahrojer@icloud.com
On this day the exhibition will be open from 13:00-16:00
You can find the Broedplaats Lely easily through google maps or other navigation applications. When you arrive at the site you will see the posters which will help you find the entrance. Once inside there is a map and a printed leaflet that can help you with navigation. The panel talk will be held in Hannah’s studio which is located on the 1st floor. It’s on the 1st floor when you come from the stairs you head to the left. It is one of the last studio’s just before “the archive”. You will be able to tell which one it is easily by the large pole dance poles inside.
3.10 13:00 Pole Dance for Beginners
workshop
by
Hannah Rojer
(1,5 hours)
This workshop is for first-timers or beginner pole dancers who want to practice in a safe and supported way. You will take your first steps in exploring the art of pole dance, which combines acrobatics, dance and flow. If you want to feel confident and strong in your body and have fun with your work-out, this one's for you!
more info
What to wear
preferably wear short shorts and maybe a sports bra, bikini or bathing suit. You need your skin to grip on the pole, so the more skin you show, the better.
Wear something that is comfortable and allows you to move freely.
If you have a yoga-mat, please bring it.
To sign up, send an e-mail to hannahrojer@icloud.com
Spots are limited, there is only 6 spots available.
On this day the exhibition will be open from 13:00-15:30
You can find the Broedplaats Lely easily through google maps or other navigation applications. When you arrive at the site you will see the posters which will help you find the entrance. Once inside there is a map and a printed leaflet that can help you with navigation. The panel talk will be held in Hannah’s studio which is located on the 1st floor. It’s on the 1st floor when you come from the stairs you head to the left. It is one of the last studio’s just before “the archive”. You will be able to tell which one it is easily by the large pole dance poles inside.
4.10 Closing Day
16:00
Textures
pole dance performance & installation
byViiSUAL DiiALOGUE & POLETICS
(15 minutes)
br
Main Hall - 1st floor
18:00 Big Toilet Radio - Lely Special
(ongoing)
For the last day of the exhibition BigToilet Radio is developing a special radio program featuring guests from the building and outside, focusing on the topic of leaving and living in Amsterdam. The program will last about 3 hours. For this activity they will activate the iconic stairwell space of the Broedplaats (stairwell 0,5) as well as other spaces in the building.
The broadcast will be recorded and streamed on their website on another date in the future. It will also be available on their mixcloud to listen back to.
19:00
concert
byHendrik Müller & Maarten Voortman Jazz Duo
1st set (45 minutes)
Hendrick Müller (double bass) and Maarten Voortman (piano) play their own compositions as well as songs from the jazz standard repertoire. For the closing day they will play two sets.
20:00
On Tenter Hooks
[threaded or shredded] une fois de plus, sans
reading
bydariya trubina
(20 minutes)
dariya trubina will read from her thesis.
What happens in the moment of encountering the presence of someone else?
The thesis investigates this encounter beyond institutional or prescriptive frameworks. It explores the spatiality and performativity of relational practices-such as institutions, spaces of (in)hospitality, interstices, friendships, gestures, power dynamics-as means of connecting the personal with the political.
20:30
concert
byHendrik Müller & Maarten Voortman Jazz Duo
2nd set (45 minutes)
Hendrick Müller (double bass) and Maarten Voortman (piano) play their own compositions as well as songs from the jazz standard repertoire. For the closing day they will play two sets.
21:30
dj set
byDJ U.C.L.A.
(1 hour)
Resident artist and curator of the show Luca Heydt will play a small set of his usual danceable mix of electronica/hip-hop and jazz to say farewell to this amazing space that hosted his creative practice for the last two years.
EMIRHAKIN
DUST OF 4 AM
"This video essay was ignited by a coincidental discovery during my residency period in in a deserted town in Austria. On one of the sleepless nights, around 4 AM, I came across James Baldwin's essay 'Nothing Personal' and it accompanied me throughout the other nocturnal hours."
As EMIRHAKIN reflected on his cleaning experience, he resolved to tackle the untouched areas of the residency, spaces layered with decades of dust and neglect. This simple task evolved into a contemplative ritual, revealing hidden narratives and the silent accumulation of time. Through this process, he also shed light on the labor conditions and the often overlooked economy of the cleaning profession, infusing his essay with a deeper significance that transcends mere physical cleanliness.
Robin Beekman
Depth Array
Depth Array is an audiovisual installation that investigates our perception of depth. The work creates an enveloping and constantly shifting audiovisual environment that challenges our perception by creating planes of light within its environment. In this installation, Robin Beekman explores the effect of the after-image, a phenomenon that intensifies with the increasing speed of the installation. The interplay of light and shadow effortlessly captures the viewer's attention, luring them into a state reminiscent of hypnosis.
Alice Sprascio
Snail Slime
Snail Slime (Bava di Lumaca, in Italian) is a graphic novel by Alice Sprascio, created during a short master’s program at a comics and illustration school in Turin. The story follows Lumaca (Snail) and her friends, who live among the grass in a run-down urban setting. Their peaceful life is disrupted when grass-eating machines arrive, forcing them to leave their home. Now homeless, Lumaca wanders aimlessly through the area. Her encounters with Fiore (Flower) and other creatures set her on a journey of self-discovery.
Many of the settings in the book are inspired by the landscape around Lely—take a look around and see if you can spot them! Bava di Lumaca is still a work in progress, with the second part of the story and its English translation expected in fall/winter 2024.
Youngjin Park
Body of the Language
This work is a composition of images derived from typography research conducted by the Embassy of Freemind. Language transforms fluidly over time, much like our bodies. As Ludwig Wittgenstein stated, "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world." How will our bodies, reconstituted through language, evolve in form—whether in the past or the future?
Pico Okada
Mass VI, Mass VI - ginkgo
The mass of pop characters and city lights depicted in the works express the consumer society, conformity, and homogeneity of Japan.
(Pigments, acrylic paints, print on canvas. 100 x 80 cm and 100 x 70 cm)
Anna Kakhiani
Results of the workshops ‘The Diorama of Accidental Temples’ 10.02.2024
Meng-Hsuan Chin
Moss and Pitchforks
There is something common in charcoal and time: both are swift yet tend to accumulate. A voice tinkles: " Collect our time. " This work is part of a series of drawings which are inspired by scenes captured in Vancouver during a family trip. Different from making sketches directly on site, working with photographic references underlines the sense of delay which slowly reconstructs the perceived moment.
Masaki Komoto & Yuri Sato
Calendar 2024: Plaid
A series of three posters with a photograph of an embroidery work: Calendar is a collaborative project by textile craftsperson and artist Masaki Komoto and graphic designer Yuri Sato. Initiated in 2021, the project uses needlework samplers as a starting point to explore various ways of bringing needlecraft and...
Calendar 2022: Type Family
...graphic design together. They search for fresh approaches to needlecraft by introducing aesthetics usually associated with graphic design, whilst simultaneously respecting centuries old techniques used in sewing and embroidery. For their calendar series, each yearly calendar draws on... .
Calendar 2023: 3 Strands of Floss
. ...different ideas and phenomena associated with graphic design and needlework. Such ideas subsequently influence both the format and printing methods used to realise each calendar.
Ania Lenartowska (polinex_x)
"As you make your bed, so shall you be rested"
has its roots in my Polish culture. It is one of the many commonly used proverbs that is often passed down from generation to generation, it contains an observation about life and is intended to express a certain wisdom.
This saying can be seen as a metaphor for the interconnectedness of our actions and their consequences on a deeper, symbolic level. It suggests that our thoughts, intentions, and choices have a profound impact not only on our external circumstances but also on our inner states of being. The act of "making your bed" represents the intentional creation and arrangement of one's personal space, which extends beyond the physical realm.
In my project, the nature of this saying goes even further. It suggests that the relationship between our actions and their consequences is not entirely fixed or predictable. By making our own bed, we try to bring order, to impose control in a chaotic world, to find the best solution, to be masters of our lives. Beyond this layer, however, there is another layer, and perhaps even another, which operates independently of us. It invites us to accept the fluidity of existence and the constant flow of circumstances, as we are unable to fully put our hands on the outcome.
Anna Kakhiani
Bundle
In 2024, I see abandoned Ikea mattresses daily as neighbours move out, unable to take their belongings due to the housing crisis in the Netherlands. Artists and cultural workers are losing their homes to gentrification as buildings that once housed them are turned into commercial spaces. The construction around us feels like a vice, squeezing us into the unknown, forcing us to ask: What can we take with us? Where will our next home be?
A big, clunky bundle symbolizes this forced displacement—an elephant in the room that can no longer be ignored. The sense of home I had slowly started to rebuild after my own displacement as a refugee is threatened again, as housing insecurity becomes a daily reality for our creative community.
JuPerArt
Just Leave Me Here
A multi sensory performance installation chronicles the unpredictable nomadic journey of Juliana’s life, from birth to the present. You will encounter a variety of sensory elements to explore and interact with. While “living” in a box, Juliana shares her house-moving experiences and listens to yours, seeking a deep connection and interaction that can only happen when she feels at home. Through Maps and Post-It, you will be invited to listen, share or do both about her living experiences and yours.
Niet
Tweedehans
Ferguut
Naive paintings
A series of paintings that endeavor to hold no meaning or pretention. It came about when I was at my lowest. Burnt out and struggling with coming to terms with my corporate day to day life, intuition, play and artististic...
... ambition had made way for pragmatism and passive perfectionism. LELY played a critical role as a safehaven where I rediscovered artistic discourse, intuition, curiousity, and sense of play. It birthed this series of paintings, portraying an ongoing exercise to depart from the incessant need for intentionality, rationality and meaning. A return to naïveté.
dariya trubina
On Tenter Hooks
[threaded or shredded] une fois de plus, sans
She uses the plain weave, the strongest, simplest and most ancient of weaving techniques. She occasionally intervenes in it, pulling at the threads, un-evening the pattern and adjusting the shape in a way that is both patient and slightly violent, challenging its predetermined form.
Treating material as language and language as material, she is interested in translation, taking systems of organisation and shifting them just slightly, lightly curving their learned meaning.
Tenter hooks [from Medieval Latin tentōrium, from Latin tendere to stretch] were used in the process of making woollen or linen cloth which needed to be washed, stretched and dried under tension, to retain its shape and size. The wet cloth was stretched over a wooden frame - a tenter - using the hooks (nails), and left to dry.
...
...
Over the centuries of using this method of controlled drying, the expression 'to be on tenterhooks' acquired a figurative meaning in English. It is used to describe a state of uneasiness, anxiety, pressure, or suspense. This expression is often misinterpreted as "tender hooks", creating an eggcorn — a substitution of an element as people try to make sense of a phrase that uses a term unfamiliar to them.
In double weaving one layer covers another, preventing access to a part of the process. Tension, errors, gaps can be checked by using a small mirror, placed in the opening between the upper and the lower layers of the weave. An indirect ingress: a material and temporal reflection of the process. A rear view. A translation.
dariya likes to rearrange glossaries, grids and gaps in her close readings of architecture and built environments. She indicates the performative potential of space, working with object-based compositions, voice, sound and movement. Stretching the codes of repetition.
Iskra Vukšić
Six Meters from the Highest Tide
Six Meters from the Highest Tide refers to a maritime commons law on the Croatian coast, which defines the beach as public commons that can not be privatised nor usurpated. However, in summer, when mass tourism heavily outnumbers the permanent population, temporary occupations are abundant. At night, tourists instrumentalize towels held down by pebbles in an illegitimate attempt to claim the best beach plots for the next day. These tools of reservation are removed at the break of dawn by municipal workers and their return is heavily fined. The towels in the installation have been collected from beaches by the municipality of Makarska last August.
The installation references the form of a carpet, drawing on the tradition of, among other, Persian carpets that depict idealized or mythical gardens and introduce landscapes into interior spaces. The colourful motifs of the towels reflect archetypical holiday staples and reveal a homogenized and simplified vision of the Mediterranean seascape as perpetuated through the tourist gaze. As artefacts that remain in the wake of the touristic high season, they refer to the spatial tensions, negotiations and gentrification that follow the heavy commercialization of the sun-sea-beach fantasy.
Luca Heydt
a puddle of water held in shape by my thoughts
Water reflections are never static, its fluid form constantly plays with the light in ways that never repeat. Trying to capture this process is an impossible task, the result always an imperfect representation. Embracing this imperfection 'a puddle of water held in shape by my thoughts' plays with the materiality of the digital image with the border between digital grain and the movement of the water constantly blurring.
This ongoing research project consists of clips recorded over the last two years. All of them are unfiltered and edited only in their framing, focusing the viewer on specific parts, creating shapes and sometimes movement. 'a puddle of water held in shape by my thoughts' invites the viewer to dwell, linger and lose track of time while watching. Unlike gazing into the abyss with its sinister implication the work invites a friendly gaze that makes you get lost in thought like staring into a fire or watching the waves.
studio salt, pepper, and peace
irregular issue 2: Leaving Space
irregular is a graphic design magazine exploring cross-discipline connections, seeking to shake up usual expectations in the field. Through new approaches and experimentation, the magazine serves as a playground.
Issue 2: Leaving Space takes the form of a calendar, realized through twelve consecutive workshops in collaboration with fellow designers and artists. It aims to preserve a sense of Broedplaats Lely (2017-2024), a prior elementary school building which until now has hosted housing and artist studios.
Collaborators were not only encouraged to scout for spots of interest, but also create typographic interruptions in the space, turning each session into the months of an eventual calendar, and therefore highlighting the passage of time, and the consequent temporality of things.
Realized and designed in collaboration with
Loren Xu, Parsa Adibi, Can Evyapan, Cathy Hu,
Liza Borovikova, Yoohee Cha, Eunji Lee,
Hagar Cohen, Haoran Zhi, Jiwon Choi,
Flora Palhegyi, and Rosa Shepherd.
Maite Karssenberg
A Window of Time
"LELY came to my rescue. Like a cruise ship, it sailed by in the dead of night, and picked me up."
In "A Window of Time" I reflect on how a building is not only a space to live in, but also a gaze outwards - a particular view defining you and your future. Through a written and spoken memoir of my LELY years, and a painting of the view outside my window at the time, this sensation is evoked - the window representing the sense of being secured inside, and more importantly: of having a (new) perspective on the future.
I lived in LELY from March 2019 to November 2022. These years were simultaneously eventful and unusually quiet; I arrived heartbroken and kind of by chance, the pandemic struck, and I got stuck at home numbed by long covid. As never before I got intertwined with the space I lived in, and more importantly, with the window I looked out through, observing the view. As I grew, recovered and learned, the building, its inhabitants and the view outside my window became a part of me. LELY came to symbolize the incredible importance of creativity, community and simply having a space in the city, however immobilized you might feel.
Tatjana Macic, Max Lester, Inneke Taalman,
Anouk Asselineau, Benjain Schoones,
Ellen-Rose Wallace, Samuel White Evans & Nadine Ghandour
Caretaker’s Burden
is a research project (on-going since 2018, by Tatjana Macic in the Lely) that reflects on the responsibility of care for spaces such as Lely which hold potential to foster a sense of community in a time and place where individualism is seen as a virtue and alienation is the order of the day.
Tatjana Macic
Leftovers the Lely
Folding leftovers by Tatjana Macic is a twofold installation that reflects upon the notion of precarity of space and folding memories.
It is made of books that the residents of the Lely have shared over the years in a makeshift common library and an installation from discarded objects from the Lely building. Folding leftovers is activated by performative reading sessions with participation by the audience.
Evan Fugazzi
Garden
“Garden” is a conversation between two tones. A gestural touch that is organic, curious, structured, and playful invites lively contemplation of stillness and movement, place and possibility.
Rixta van der Molen
Autonomaybe here?
Blurred and light soaked as if one were to just open their eyes after a lovely summer days nap. Focus. One's sleeping rough is another's relaxing romantic. This work consist of pictures taken in Geuzenveld, Amsterdam in 2020.
de Appel
reading stations
Hannah Rojer, Ra’iesa & Shariefa
ViiSUAL DiiALOGUE & POLETICS
This is a visual representation of what is stored in our bodily tissues, of the things that are perhaps unfelt but always present.
The work represents a journey inwards, exploring themes like collectivism, ancestry and the ripple effects of our actions.
We wanted to leave space for what is already there and deepen our awareness of it.
A central theme is the deeply complex relationship we have with our bodies and our bodily autonomy. Through this work we want to practise honoring our bodies, and move towards normalizing this practice further.
To honor your own body is to be able to honor and uplift everybody.
We dance for the people who are not able to. Because no one is free until we are all free.
(POLETICS by Hannah Rojer, ViiSUAL DiiALOGUE by Ra’iesa & Shariefa)
Shadi Ekman
Echoes of Lely
Standing as a testament to reinvention, adaptation, and conservation, LELY is a place where change weaves its narrative, preserving some elements while allowing others to fade, as its identity evolves through time. ‘Echoes of LELY’ is an AR sculpture inspired by the lost work of Joop van den Broek, embodying the echoes of LELY’s many past lives. This piece serves as a spectral symbol of the building's rich history, a tribute to the moments and memories that have shaped its ever-changing essence.
EMIRHAKIN
DUST OF 4 AM
"This video essay was ignited by a coincidental discovery during my residency period in in a deserted town in Austria. On one of the sleepless nights, around 4 AM, I came across James Baldwin's essay 'Nothing Personal' and it accompanied me throughout the other nocturnal hours."
As EMIRHAKIN reflected on his cleaning experience, he resolved to tackle the untouched areas of the residency, spaces layered with decades of dust and neglect. This simple task evolved into a contemplative ritual, revealing hidden narratives and the silent accumulation of time. Through this process, he also shed light on the labor conditions and the often overlooked economy of the cleaning profession, infusing his essay with a deeper significance that transcends mere physical cleanliness.
Robin Beekman
Depth Array
Depth Array is an audiovisual installation that investigates our perception of depth. The work creates an enveloping and constantly shifting audiovisual environment that challenges our perception by creating planes of light within its environment. In this installation, Robin Beekman explores the effect of the after-image, a phenomenon that intensifies with the increasing speed of the installation. The interplay of light and shadow effortlessly captures the viewer's attention, luring them into a state reminiscent of hypnosis.
Alice Sprascio
Snail Slime
Snail Slime (Bava di Lumaca, in Italian) is a graphic novel by Alice Sprascio, created during a short master’s program at a comics and illustration school in Turin. The story follows Lumaca (Snail) and her friends, who live among the grass in a run-down urban setting. Their peaceful life is disrupted when grass-eating machines arrive, forcing them to leave their home. Now homeless, Lumaca wanders aimlessly through the area. Her encounters with Fiore (Flower) and other creatures set her on a journey of self-discovery.
Many of the settings in the book are inspired by the landscape around Lely—take a look around and see if you can spot them! Bava di Lumaca is still a work in progress, with the second part of the story and its English translation expected in fall/winter 2024.
Youngjin Park
Body of the Language
This work is a composition of images derived from typography research conducted by the Embassy of Freemind. Language transforms fluidly over time, much like our bodies. As Ludwig Wittgenstein stated, "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world." How will our bodies, reconstituted through language, evolve in form—whether in the past or the future?
Pico Okada
Mass VI, Mass VI - ginkgo
The mass of pop characters and city lights depicted in the works express the consumer society, conformity, and homogeneity of Japan.
(Pigments, acrylic paints, print on canvas. 100 x 80 cm and 100 x 70 cm)
Anna Kakhiani
Results of the workshops ‘The Diorama of Accidental Temples’ 10.02.2024
Meng-Hsuan Chin
Moss and Pitchforks
There is something common in charcoal and time: both are swift yet tend to accumulate. A voice tinkles: " Collect our time. " This work is part of a series of drawings which are inspired by scenes captured in Vancouver during a family trip. Different from making sketches directly on site, working with photographic references underlines the sense of delay which slowly reconstructs the perceived moment.
Masaki Komoto & Yuri Sato
Calendar 2024: Plaid
A series of three posters with a photograph of an embroidery work: Calendar is a collaborative project by textile craftsperson and artist Masaki Komoto and graphic designer Yuri Sato. Initiated in 2021, the project uses needlework samplers as a starting point to explore various ways of bringing needlecraft and...
Calendar 2022: Type Family
...graphic design together. They search for fresh approaches to needlecraft by introducing aesthetics usually associated with graphic design, whilst simultaneously respecting centuries old techniques used in sewing and embroidery. For their calendar series, each yearly calendar draws on... .
Calendar 2023: 3 Strands of Floss
. ...different ideas and phenomena associated with graphic design and needlework. Such ideas subsequently influence both the format and printing methods used to realise each calendar.
Ania Lenartowska (polinex_x)
"As you make your bed, so shall you be rested"
has its roots in my Polish culture. It is one of the many commonly used proverbs that is often passed down from generation to generation, it contains an observation about life and is intended to express a certain wisdom.
This saying can be seen as a metaphor for the interconnectedness of our actions and their consequences on a deeper, symbolic level. It suggests that our thoughts, intentions, and choices have a profound impact not only on our external circumstances but also on our inner states of being. The act of "making your bed" represents the intentional creation and arrangement of one's personal space, which extends beyond the physical realm.
In my project, the nature of this saying goes even further. It suggests that the relationship between our actions and their consequences is not entirely fixed or predictable. By making our own bed, we try to bring order, to impose control in a chaotic world, to find the best solution, to be masters of our lives. Beyond this layer, however, there is another layer, and perhaps even another, which operates independently of us. It invites us to accept the fluidity of existence and the constant flow of circumstances, as we are unable to fully put our hands on the outcome.
Anna Kakhiani
Bundle
In 2024, I see abandoned Ikea mattresses daily as neighbours move out, unable to take their belongings due to the housing crisis in the Netherlands. Artists and cultural workers are losing their homes to gentrification as buildings that once housed them are turned into commercial spaces. The construction around us feels like a vice, squeezing us into the unknown, forcing us to ask: What can we take with us? Where will our next home be?
A big, clunky bundle symbolizes this forced displacement—an elephant in the room that can no longer be ignored. The sense of home I had slowly started to rebuild after my own displacement as a refugee is threatened again, as housing insecurity becomes a daily reality for our creative community.
JuPerArt
Just Leave Me Here
A multi sensory performance installation chronicles the unpredictable nomadic journey of Juliana’s life, from birth to the present. You will encounter a variety of sensory elements to explore and interact with. While “living” in a box, Juliana shares her house-moving experiences and listens to yours, seeking a deep connection and interaction that can only happen when she feels at home. Through Maps and Post-It, you will be invited to listen, share or do both about her living experiences and yours.
Niet
Tweedehans
JuPerArt
Naive paintings
A series of paintings that endeavor to hold no meaning or pretention. It came about when I was at my lowest. Burnt out and struggling with coming to terms with my corporate day to day life, intuition, play and artististic...
... ambition had made way for pragmatism and passive perfectionism. LELY played a critical role as a safehaven where I rediscovered artistic discourse, intuition, curiousity, and sense of play. It birthed this series of paintings, portraying an ongoing exercise to depart from the incessant need for intentionality, rationality and meaning. A return to naïveté.
dariya trubina
On Tenter Hooks
[threaded or shredded] une fois de plus, sans
She uses the plain weave, the strongest, simplest and most ancient of weaving techniques. She occasionally intervenes in it, pulling at the threads, un-evening the pattern and adjusting the shape in a way that is both patient and slightly violent, challenging its predetermined form.
Treating material as language and language as material, she is interested in translation, taking systems of organisation and shifting them just slightly, lightly curving their learned meaning.
Tenter hooks [from Medieval Latin tentōrium, from Latin tendere to stretch] were used in the process of making woollen or linen cloth which needed to be washed, stretched and dried under tension, to retain its shape and size. The wet cloth was stretched over a wooden frame - a tenter - using the hooks (nails), and left to dry.
...
...
Over the centuries of using this method of controlled drying, the expression 'to be on tenterhooks' acquired a figurative meaning in English. It is used to describe a state of uneasiness, anxiety, pressure, or suspense. This expression is often misinterpreted as "tender hooks", creating an eggcorn — a substitution of an element as people try to make sense of a phrase that uses a term unfamiliar to them.
In double weaving one layer covers another, preventing access to a part of the process. Tension, errors, gaps can be checked by using a small mirror, placed in the opening between the upper and the lower layers of the weave. An indirect ingress: a material and temporal reflection of the process. A rear view. A translation.
dariya likes to rearrange glossaries, grids and gaps in her close readings of architecture and built environments. She indicates the performative potential of space, working with object-based compositions, voice, sound and movement. Stretching the codes of repetition.
Iskra Vukšić
Six Meters from the Highest Tide
Six Meters from the Highest Tide refers to a maritime commons law on the Croatian coast, which defines the beach as public commons that can not be privatised nor usurpated. However, in summer, when mass tourism heavily outnumbers the permanent population, temporary occupations are abundant. At night, tourists instrumentalize towels held down by pebbles in an illegitimate attempt to claim the best beach plots for the next day. These tools of reservation are removed at the break of dawn by municipal workers and their return is heavily fined. The towels in the installation have been collected from beaches by the municipality of Makarska last August.
The installation references the form of a carpet, drawing on the tradition of, among other, Persian carpets that depict idealized or mythical gardens and introduce landscapes into interior spaces. The colourful motifs of the towels reflect archetypical holiday staples and reveal a homogenized and simplified vision of the Mediterranean seascape as perpetuated through the tourist gaze. As artefacts that remain in the wake of the touristic high season, they refer to the spatial tensions, negotiations and gentrification that follow the heavy commercialization of the sun-sea-beach fantasy.
Luca Heydt
a puddle of water held in shape by my thoughts
Water reflections are never static, its fluid form constantly plays with the light in ways that never repeat. Trying to capture this process is an impossible task, the result always an imperfect representation. Embracing this imperfection 'a puddle of water held in shape by my thoughts' plays with the materiality of the digital image with the border between digital grain and the movement of the water constantly blurring.
This ongoing research project consists of clips recorded over the last two years. All of them are unfiltered and edited only in their framing, focusing the viewer on specific parts, creating shapes and sometimes movement. 'a puddle of water held in shape by my thoughts' invites the viewer to dwell, linger and lose track of time while watching. Unlike gazing into the abyss with its sinister implication the work invites a friendly gaze that makes you get lost in thought like staring into a fire or watching the waves.
studio salt, pepper, and peace
irregular issue 2: Leaving Space
irregular is a graphic design magazine exploring cross-discipline connections, seeking to shake up usual expectations in the field. Through new approaches and experimentation, the magazine serves as a playground.
Issue 2: Leaving Space takes the form of a calendar, realized through twelve consecutive workshops in collaboration with fellow designers and artists. It aims to preserve a sense of Broedplaats Lely (2017-2024), a prior elementary school building which until now has hosted housing and artist studios.
Collaborators were not only encouraged to scout for spots of interest, but also create typographic interruptions in the space, turning each session into the months of an eventual calendar, and therefore highlighting the passage of time, and the consequent temporality of things.
Realized and designed in collaboration with
Loren Xu, Parsa Adibi, Can Evyapan, Cathy Hu,
Liza Borovikova, Yoohee Cha, Eunji Lee,
Hagar Cohen, Haoran Zhi, Jiwon Choi,
Flora Palhegyi, and Rosa Shepherd.
Maite Karssenberg
A Window of Time
"LELY came to my rescue. Like a cruise ship, it sailed by in the dead of night, and picked me up."
In "A Window of Time" I reflect on how a building is not only a space to live in, but also a gaze outwards - a particular view defining you and your future. Through a written and spoken memoir of my LELY years, and a painting of the view outside my window at the time, this sensation is evoked - the window representing the sense of being secured inside, and more importantly: of having a (new) perspective on the future.
I lived in LELY from March 2019 to November 2022. These years were simultaneously eventful and unusually quiet; I arrived heartbroken and kind of by chance, the pandemic struck, and I got stuck at home numbed by long covid. As never before I got intertwined with the space I lived in, and more importantly, with the window I looked out through, observing the view. As I grew, recovered and learned, the building, its inhabitants and the view outside my window became a part of me. LELY came to symbolize the incredible importance of creativity, community and simply having a space in the city, however immobilized you might feel.
Tatjana Macic, Max Lester, Inneke Taalman,
Anouk Asselineau, Benjain Schoones,
Ellen-Rose Wallace, Samuel White Evans & Nadine Ghandour
Caretaker’s Burden
is a research project (on-going since 2018, by Tatjana Macic in the Lely) that reflects on the responsibility of care for spaces such as Lely which hold potential to foster a sense of community in a time and place where individualism is seen as a virtue and alienation is the order of the day.
Tatjana Macic
Leftovers
Folding leftovers by Tatjana Macic is a twofold installation that reflects upon the notion of precarity of space and folding memories.
It is made of books that the residents of the Lely have shared over the years in a makeshift common library and an installation from discarded objects from the Lely building. Folding leftovers is activated by performative reading sessions with participation by the audience.
Evan Fugazzi
Garden
“Garden” is a conversation between two tones. A gestural touch that is organic, curious, structured, and playful invites lively contemplation of stillness and movement, place and possibility.
Rixta van der Molen
Autonomaybe here?
Blurred and light soaked as if one were to just open their eyes after a lovely summer days nap. Focus. One's sleeping rough is another's relaxing romantic. This work consist of pictures taken in Geuzenveld, Amsterdam in 2020.
de Appel
reading stations
Hannah Rojer, Ra’iesa & Shariefa
ViiSUAL DiiALOGUE & POLETICS
This is a visual representation of what is stored in our bodily tissues, of the things that are perhaps unfelt but always present.
The work represents a journey inwards, exploring themes like collectivism, ancestry and the ripple effects of our actions.
We wanted to leave space for what is already there and deepen our awareness of it.
A central theme is the deeply complex relationship we have with our bodies and our bodily autonomy. Through this work we want to practise honoring our bodies, and move towards normalizing this practice further.
To honor your own body is to be able to honor and uplift everybody.
We dance for the people who are not able to. Because no one is free until we are all free.
(POLETICS by Hannah Rojer, ViiSUAL DiiALOGUE by Ra’iesa & Shariefa)
Shadi Ekman
Echoes
Standing as a testament to reinvention, adaptation, and conservation, LELY is a place where change weaves its narrative, preserving some elements while allowing others to fade, as its identity evolves through time. ‘Echoes of LELY’ is an AR sculpture inspired by the lost work of Joop van den Broek, embodying the echoes of LELY’s many past lives. This piece serves as a spectral symbol of the building's rich history, a tribute to the moments and memories that have shaped its ever-changing essence.
The Broedplaats Lely in Amsterdam Nieuw-West is coming to an end.
After providing artists and creatives with housing and workspaces for over 7 years the Lely has been sold this year and all the current tenants have to vacate it in October. We concluded that there is a need to say farewell to this significant building, in an artistic, discursive and commemorative fashion, to create a moment for people who have matured here as artists.
A group of 3 artists banded together to create the ambitious plan for an exhibition and public program involving more than 40 artists, musicians and designers living and working at the Lely.
Core concept of the exhibition is the idea of ‘Leaving Space’ both in the physical sense (having to relocate to a different place) as well as the metaphorical one (an invitation for ideas, things and entities to come in). It encapsulates both the struggle of being displaced, the opportunities that this space has offered its habitants/frequenters and the possibilities the generous gesture of letting others enter can bring. In the exhibition the artists and musicians will reflect on the temporary nature of the space they inhabited and deal with themes of gentrification, precariousness, community, nostalgia and transformation.
In an ever shrinking cultural climate we feel it’s paramount not only for the creative community here at Lely, and art-audience in Amsterdam and the Netherlands, but also for people not engaged with art, but who are familiar with the issues around displacement to become aware of how their surroundings are changing as they become the projects of new investors.
You can check the opening times of the exhibition in the program. If you want to come another time please send us an e-mail (lelyfini@gmail.com) to book an appointment. We’re looking forward to seeing you.
thank you to the many volunteers who helped with preparing the space and materials,
hanging up the posters around the city and attending the bar and the space during opening times of the exhibition
The Broedplaats Lely in Amsterdam Nieuw-West is coming to an end.
After providing artists and creatives with housing and workspaces for over 7 years the Lely has been sold this year and all the current tenants have to vacate it in October. We concluded that there is a need to say farewell to this significant building, in an artistic, discursive and commemorative fashion, to create a moment for people who have matured here as artists.
A group of 3 artists banded together to create the ambitious plan for an exhibition and public program involving more than 40 artists, musicians and designers living and working at the Lely.
Core concept of the exhibition is the idea of ‘Leaving Space’ both in the physical sense (having to relocate to a different place) as well as the metaphorical one (an invitation for ideas, things and entities to come in). It encapsulates both the struggle of being displaced, the opportunities that this space has offered its habitants/frequenters and the possibilities the generous gesture of letting others enter can bring. In the exhibition the artists and musicians will reflect on the temporary nature of the space they inhabited and deal with themes of gentrification, precariousness, community, nostalgia and transformation.
In an ever shrinking cultural climate we feel it’s paramount not only for the creative community here at Lely, and art-audience in Amsterdam and the Netherlands, but also for people not engaged with art, but who are familiar with the issues around displacement to become aware of how their surroundings are changing as they become the projects of new investors.
You can check the opening times of the exhibition in the program. If you want to come another time please send us an email (lelyfini@gmail.com) to book an appointment. We’re looking forward to seeing you.
thank you to the many volunteers who helped with preparing the space and materials,
hanging up the posters around the city and attending the bar and the space during opening times of the exhibition