The dear city at its best

17 March 2020, lockdown day one. Boom… all of a sudden many loyal volunteers became ‘unemployed’. It was a consequence of many volunteer organisations in Amsterdam temporarily having to close…

Door

Vrijwilligers Centrale Amsterdam

Inside out

Prime Minister Rutte announced the 'intelligent lockdown' on 12 March. That pause button turned Amsterdam into a silent, unreal city, dramatically changing the relationship between inside and outside overnight. Outside…

The unlocked city

The sighs fade away. Public life is re-emerging, the lockdown lifted step by step. Finally we can dance again. The city is opening up. Now that the corona measures are…

Door

Monique Vermeulen

Eigenwijks New-West

Eigenwijks has been working to create socially strong and liveable neighbourhoods in Amsterdam Nieuw-West since 1958. One of the most essential conditions needed for such neighbourhoods is encounters between residents,…

Stichting NDSM-werf

A quiet city, paralysed by unforeseen circumstances, offers time for reflection on current social systems and attitudes to public space. How do we use parks, playgrounds, benches, and pavements when…

#HowAreYouReallyDoing

Seven Amsterdam communities Twelve local artists Poster campaign throughout Amsterdam Coincidental encounters and spontaneous conversations soon disappeared during the first lockdown. These unexpected and unintended contacts are one of the…

Curator

Merel Noorlander en Arthur Kneepkens

Female gaze goes viral

This crisis has had a big impact on me as a documentary photographer and feminist. In the space of a few days, I lost all my assignments. I also worry…

Pakhuis de Zwijger

The coronavirus has caused many parts of our city to grind to a halt, but that does not include social initiatives: more than 400 have already been submitted to the…

Virusreports Diana Ozon & Mathilde muPe

Drawing is a habit both for Diana Ozon and Mathilde muPe. In March 2020, the exhibitions that muPe was working towards were cancelled, and Ozon had to shelve her poetry…

Humans of Amsterdam

Since 2012, I have been portraying and writing stories about people on the streets of Amsterdam. Together these stories form the project Humans of Amsterdam. I have photographed a couple…

Door

Debra Barraud

Curator

Debra Barraud

City without Urbanity

People praised the silent, empty streets of Amsterdam, but the core of what makes the city the city is lost. As a counterbalance to the romanticization of emptiness, this room…

Nature in a lockdown city

The corona pandemic has had a huge impact on people, the economy and nature. This impact can clearly be seen through personal stories, pictures, videos and audio files. The Amsterdam…

Door

Margreet van Middelkoop, Emmy Nijhuis, Zoë Dijkstra, Mailo De Rooij, Didi Serényi, Arie Ebbenhorst en Joran IJsseldijk.

SOUND OF SILENCE

Paradiso, Melkweg, Westerunie, Air, Bitterzoet, Chicago Social Club, Chin Chin, Doka, Radion, Jimmy Woo, Marktkantine, Panama, Club Nyx, Oliva, OT301, Club Church, Radion, Club Lovelee, Radio Radio – these are…

Curator

Joram Blomkwist

Corona testimonies Amsterdam-West

Stories of intense grief and great joy. Candid descriptions of the power of poetry and music in uncertain times. Testimonies from neighbours taking care of each other. This is how…

Curator

Margreet van der Vlies - Operatie Periscoop

Dam Square: Mirror of change in the city

René Rietbergen has been working at the Royal Palace on Dam Square for many years and on 4 May 2020 he flew the flag at half-mast in the morning as…

How does the city sound under lockdown?

Amsterdam under lockdown suddenly sounded very different. How did the city residents experience this? On the 20th of March, Soundtrackcity placed a call to all Amsterdammers to write something about…

Door

Soundtrackcity

Corona-Archives New Dakota

Nieuw Dakota proudly presents a selection of entries from our Corona-Archives. The Corona-Archives is the first initiative in the Netherlands that Covid-19 has launched from an artistic point of view.…

Meervaart

It’s quiet in De Meervaart Theatre. Where people normally crowd through the door to see performances, watch films, meet up or attend conventions, nobody can enter now. No buzz in…

Shaping Feelings

The COVID-19 pandemic is disrupting every aspect of people's lives in an unprecedented manner. While many of its implications, such as psychological distress and social distancing measures affect all of…

Door

Framer Framed

Black Lives Matter

Since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis on 25 May 2020, there have been huge protests around the world against excessive police violence and institutional racism. Amsterdam is no…

Curator

Imara Limon

Faith and hope

Eating together is the oil that lubricates friendship. The coronavirus has changed the world, and our social lives. It has emptied places of worship, restaurants, cinemas, and museums, and halted…

Black & LGBTQIA+

This room shows you how the black queer community is currently campaigning, rediscovering its power, blazing a trail and demanding a future with a different structure. The movement has already…

Curator

Naomie Pieter

Jewish Cultural Quarter

This digital presentation, compiled by the Jewish Cultural Quarter, shows Jewish life in Amsterdam during the corona crisis. During the past few months, Jews have had to adapt their traditions,…

The Silent City

Many of the city’s residents have depicted the coronavirus pandemic in photographs and videos of deserted streets, squares, canals, and buildings. Often, they are beautiful, sunny images set against a…

Poetry in the city

As Amsterdam City Poet (2019-2021), Gershwin Bonevacia has written three so-called ‘corona poems’. Poems about the COVID-19 pandemic in the city. Of course, the people of Amsterdam have written lots…

Door

Gershwin Bonevacia

Alphabet of Uncertain Times

The Alfabet van onzekere tijden (Alphabet of Uncertain Times) is an interdisciplinary study of what we can cling on to in times of crisis. Eight performers create a physical and…

Curator

Lot Wuisman (ZID Theater)

Social Unrest

It will not come as a surprise to anyone that a disaster has psychological and social consequences. Scientists have discerned a general pattern of three phases in the consequences of…

Curator

Tom van der Molen

The empty blue pepper grinder

I suddenly notice them: the empty blue ‘pepper grinders’. The image suddenly hit me. I knew that the creative, cultural and vibrant life in the city had come to a…

Curator

Marie Anne Remmelink

Young Amsterdam Citizens of the Year

Meet the young Amsterdam citizens of the year who are committed to the city, and discover what these people do for their community, neighbours and city! The title ‘Young Amsterdam…

Door

Anouar Ennali

How we defeated the monster

‘I am going to tell you a wonderful story. It started a few weeks ago when we had to keep our distance.’ When you are only ten years old, this…

Curator

ROSE stories & Stichting Kennis en Scoiale Cohesie

(A)SEXYLAND

"There are 246,378 singles living in Amsterdam. They may be more alone now than ever before, because forced distance is depriving them of touch, which is dangerous. Other bodies are…

Amsterdam Resilience

As a result of the corona pandemic, Amsterdam sometimes has the look of a deserted city: no tourists, very little day visitors, and the residents of Amsterdam mainly hidden away…

Curator

City of Amsterdam

Voices from the New West

Some voices we hear all the time. In talkshows and during the news, in newspapers and on social media, they express what they think or feel. But there are also…

Curator

Arjen Barel (Storytelling Centre)

Lockdown in the Jordaan

What’s going on behind the silent facades of the Jordaan district during lockdown? Verhalenfestival Jordaan – the Jordaan Story Festival – asked residents to submit their stories. What’s going on…

Door

Verhalenfestival Jordaan

Drawing Stories

This online presentation changes with time, reflecting the evolving narratives, experiences and expectations of the participating artists. They draw stories based on their observations and experiences. From one moment to…

Door

Framer Framed

Psychiatry in the city

For centuries, cartographers of every faith and culture have projected symbols of human fears onto the sky. Somewhere in the infinite expanses of space, their maps say, the answer to…

Curator

Wilco Tuinebreijer

Hearing-impaired Amsterdam

This room focuses on how local people with hearing problems experience their city in corona time. There are more than 129,000 of them in Amsterdam. Being hearing impaired is an…

Old Church

This storm will pass. But the choices we make now could change our lives for years to come[1]. With the prophetic installation Poems for Earthlings in the Old Church (on…

Amsterdam Cares

Healthcare workers have been at the forefront of the COVID-19 response, facing uncertainties and risks alongside their patients, and dealing with their own emotions and exhaustion as they support others.…

Isolation in the City

Dear Aunt and Family, I have thought of you many times but to day [sic] is the first time that I succeeded in finding time to write you a few…

IMC Weekend School

The national lockdown forced educational institutions throughout the country to suddenly switch to remote learning, and the staff and students of the IMC Weekend School were no exception. Through improvisation…

We participate!

How can we make it through the Covid era and continue to inspire others? By writing, painting, singing, boxing, creating theatre, or walking the dog. With the video series We…

Curator

Lot Wuisman (ZID Theater)

Curfew in sound and images

The night-time curfew in the Netherlands came into force on Saturday 23 January. While the curfew is in force people are not permitted to be outdoors after 9pm. Curfew, ‘a…

Door

Monique Vermeulen

One and a half NAP

One and a half NAP is a podcast in which Sjoerd ter Borg asks scientists about the structural impact of the pandemic on the city of Amsterdam. Each episode features…

Curator

Sjoerd ter Borg

Meervaart

It is quiet in the Meervaart. Normally we welcome many people into the building to watch performances, films, and attend conventions. No buzz in the building, no animated conversations in…

Your Foam

Like everything else, the museum's education programmes were affected by the pandemic. The virus certainly brought a whole lot of change for the students participating in the Your Foam educational…

Door

Foam

New behavior in a social distancing society

The measures taken to restrict the spread of the coronavirus are resulting in all kinds of adjustments to how people act, from standing in queues to keeping a safe distance…

The Amsterdam House

The interactive web page of ‘The Amsterdam House’ presents 25 stories of how Amsterdam residents are coping with the Covid pandemic. This animated doll’s house offers visitors an opportunity to…

Door

Iris Frankhuizen & Kim Faber

How the city breaths

In these precarious corona times, disparities in society seem bigger and more noticeable. Who has the joy of their own outdoor space while we’re all forced to stay inside? Who…

Door

Stichting NDSM-werf