AMSTERDAM.- Building a House Without Bricks consists of a public programme and exhibition hosted by damdam—a collective of collectives brought together by de Appel Curatorial Programme, Sandberg Instituut temporary master Lumbung Practice, and Gudskul, Jakarta—which seeks to cultivate methods of collective organisation in times of crisis. The festival is formulated around three central questions: How to organise? How to distribute labour and resources? How to share what we produce?
The exhibition at de Appel is the second act, after a three day public programme at OT301 in June, where you are invited into the house, turning to the physical and material structures inside. Acknowledging the limits of an exhibition, the collectives focus on objects and their potential for resource re-distribution through transvestment (transferring resources from one value system to another). The objects are commissioned by the different collectives within damdam, who shared instructions to collaboratively build a house that reflects current needs in sustaining collective practice. With these objects, they build a house that can transvest resources into each collective’s local context, using a framework that balances production budget and fees with their needs. The full programme, which includes an online programme hosted on lumbung.space and a two-day public programme in collaboration with the Creative Producer Programme Aughrim (Ireland), will be announced on de Appel’s website.
Participating collectives in the Lumbung Practice Programme are: Biquini Wax (MX), Danger Gevaar Ingozi Studio (ZA), dash (IR), Indonesia Art Movement (ID), Khamoosh (IR), Level Five (BE), Makmur Djaja (ID), Millemains (FR), Papaya Kuir (NL), Pasir Putih (ID), RE-PEAT (NL), Riwanua (ID), Serrum/Gudskul (ID), Simpasio Institute (ID), Spin (NL), Typography (RU), Voedselpark Amsterdam (NL), We Sell Reality (NL), Zilvervisjes (NL).
de Appel Kiosk with Alina Lupu, _ao_ao_ing ensemble, Hi, Jack! Publishing
June and July 2026
de Appel extends its research into grassroots art economies by working within Amsterdam’s street markets as sites of exchange, and everyday cultural production. By working in places outside traditional art institutions, de Appel hopes to connect with people through artistic practices that are closely linked to everyday life, without drawing a strict line between art and non-art. The idea for the Kiosk was inspired by our friends in the lumbung network, as well as by initiatives developed by artists to sustain their collectives and take part in broader economic systems. Every summer, we invite artists to develop month-long projects at Dappermarkt and Albert Cuypstraat, engaging directly with the markets, their visitors and surroundings over an extended period of time.
In 2026, projects by Alina Lupu, _ao_ao_ing ensemble, and Hi, Jack! Publishing explore how value is produced, translated, marked up, redistributed, or gleaned through language, global supply chains, discarded materials, and interspecies economies. Together, the projects test the kiosk as both an artistic format and a public interface through which art enters into the social and economic life of the city.
Revisiting Lapdogs of the Bourgeoisie: Class Hegemony in Contemporary Art
September 12, 2026–November 20, 2027
Over a period of nearly five years, Lapdogs of the Bourgeoisie interrogated how class structures shape the production, presentation, and reception of contemporary art. Initiated in 2006, the project asked complex, unresolved questions such as: How does class impact who becomes an artist or curator? Is international art itself a privilege of the middle classes? 20 years on, we return to these questions and ask why class continues to be so easily overlooked in the production and presentation of art—even at a time when matters of political equality are far more prevalent throughout the field.
In fact, when it comes to class structures, the art field itself may have more to contribute than what meets the eye. We all know the art world is no meritocracy exactly. But it may have proposals to share nonetheless. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time that contributions by art workers were overlooked or underrated, by historians and theorists alike. By means of a project archive and a public programme, Lapdogs of the Bourgeoisie is a chance to build on such ideas, scenarios and analyses—and to imagine new perspectives for contemporary art and beyond.
Revisited at de Appel by curators Eszter Szakács and Tirdad Zolghadr, 2026. Original project curated by Nav Haq and Tirdad Zolghadr, featuring artists Annika Eriksson, Chris Evans, Natascha Sadr Haghigian, San Keller, Hassan Khan, Marion von Osten and others.
Subversive Film: An Exercise in Assembling
December 12, 2026–February 12, 2027
Subversive Film is a cinema research and production collective based between Brussels and Ramallah, that aims to cast new light upon historical works related to Palestine and the region, to engender support for film preservation, and to investigate archival practices. At de Appel, Subversive Film presents an expanded form of their work An Exercise In Assembling, an inflection of film programming and film assemblage. It is built from films of militant form produced as part of differing liberation struggles, anti colonial struggles, social movements fighting for civil rights, and workers and immigrant rights. An Exercise in Assembling weaves together scenes/ fragments in which bodies gather, come together, assemble to generate a force, a movement in a space—both actual and cinematic—against forms of colonial, imperial, capitalist, class, and gender violence . These scenes are taken from films from across different revolutionary cine-geographies including Palestine, Cuba, Algiers, Western Sahara, Guinea Bissau, Vietnam, France among others. In collaboration with NW, Open House for Contemporary Art.
