Het Nieuwe Instituut

Het Nieuwe Instituut’s production location turns visitors into digital designers. In Long Live the Future! families design the world in the year 2520. And if you’re a designer of the future, anything is possible.

What happens to the idea of ​​value when an everyday consumable becomes an object to take care of, even when you don’t own it? In May 2021, designer Elisa van Joolen and Het Nieuwe Instituut will present the EVJ: the institute's first official museum bag, made from recycled melted plastic from disposable carrier bags. Users never own the EVJ, but take care of it for a time. Prospective borrowers can complete and sign a loan agreement via the website, in which they agree to adopt an EVJ bag for six months.

Together with the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision and the International Institute of Social History, Het Nieuwe Instituut is organising the second edition of Open Archive, a programme in which three makers search for new stories in open, digital heritage collections, with the aim of making a new media work. From 3 June, Jessica de Abreu, Femke Dekker and Michiel Huijben will present their works, which share the theme of ‘activism and archives’.

New graduates of architecture, urbanism, interior architecture and landscape architecture once again display their design talent. This year, Het Nieuwe Instituut has opened up its 6th floor for the Archiprix 2021 exhibition.

From 5 June, a unique asset to the National Collection goes on public display: an interior model by architect and artist Theo van Doesburg. The design, from 1926, is for Café Aubette, one of De Stijl's most important architectural projects. 

In the multimedia presentation Translucid in Gallery 3, I/O Collective explores the boundary between the inner and outer worlds of the human mind and body.

A new generation of designers from the Transformation Design department at the Willem de Kooning Academy invite you to reflect on your way of thinking. Their projects embrace the essential issues of our ever-changing times and show their personal urgencies and fascinations. Are you open to join them?

Join us for a Sunday Stroll on 1 August at 2pm, when Asha Capella will lead us through Lithium. This exhibition, imagined as a spa retreat, invites visitors to experience the states of exhaustion and revitalisation that characterise today’s 24/7 economy. Asha will focus on our own batteries: what recharges us, and what drains us? 

Join us for a Sunday Stroll on 8 August (2pm) when we will explore Designing the Social with detour guide Bas van der Kruk. Based on his perspective as a performer, writer, artist, and creative advisor, Bas’s guided detours usually focus on text and movement. 

Join us for a Sunday Stroll on 15 August at 2pm, when Joëlle Hoogendoorn will show us around Sonneveld House. From her perspective as an artist and teacher, she will focus on the house’s interior design, especially the use of colour, form and style.

Join us for a Sunday Stroll on 22 August at 2pm, when detour guide Erik Peters will explore the Lithium spa with us. Together, we will investigate the parallels between bodily and planetary exhaustion, speculate about alternative energy sources and imagine how the extremes of the future might look.  

Studio Wild’s Forbidden Garden of Europe, at Spazio Punch in Giudecca, Venice, will cultivate a garden of ‘invasive alien plant species’. These plants represent the 35 species to be eradicated from European soil in line with the EU legislative act of 2016.

Join us for a Sunday Stroll on 29 August (2pm) when we will explore Designing the Social with detour guide Bas van der Kruk. Based on his perspective as a performer, writer, artist, and creative advisor, Bas’s guided detours usually focus on text and movement.

In a satirical manner, The Poetic Exhibition speaks and vents about alternative perspectives on contemporary dilemmas. In this edition, resilience is the main focus and through the intimate and diverse programme, hosted by Melanin Kris and comprising spoken word and visual thoughts arts, a look is taken at the question: "Before I Die I want to..." 

Expansive Bodies: Contesting Design at Het Nieuwe Instituut is a richly illustrated overview of eight years of idiosyncratic exhibition design at Het Nieuwe Instituut. We celebrate the publication of the book with Het Nieuwe Instituut’s former Artistic and General Director, Guus Beumer, the institute’s Art Director Maureen Mooren, and others.

For this edition of the Remote Reading Room, Tina Campt will read from her forthcoming book A Black Gaze: Artists Changing How We See (2021). Campt’s remote, spoken word performance will be accompanied by a soundtrack by artist, researcher and DJ Zara Julius. After the sound piece, listeners are invited to join a Zoom Q&A session with Tina Campt.

The One Minutes Series for September-October is curated by Manuwi C Tokai on the occasion of the exhibition Temporary House of Home at Het Nieuwe Instituut. Manuwi C Tokai invites everyone to submit a one-minute video in response to the question Akarani Bono Awowa? (Where is the place where you see the sun rise and set?) This is the Kali'na way of asking: Where are you from? Where is your home?

Recent alumni of the WdKA/PZI present their design research in Once Upon a Time After. For the Master's in Design at WdKA/PZI, students conduct design research into current and relevant issues. Authorship and participation go hand in hand, in order to arrive at designed solutions. Find out how recent alumni achieved this, and how they followed up their graduation.

Take a peek behind the scenes of architecture firm MVRDV in the latest edition of TNL! In the Works, MVRDVHNI: The Living Archive of a Studio. In this run-up to the autumn 2021 exhibition, Het Nieuwe Instituut team members talk to guests including MVRDV’s Sanne van der Burgh and Leo Stuckardt.

This Thursday Night Live! event marks the launch of the web publication, For the Record: On the Politics of Music Video Culture. Joining the event are architect and urban theorist Dele Adeyemo (Afro-Beats x Afrobeat) and artist and cultural historian Sary Zananiri (The Politics of Jerusalem in Popular Culture).

Kunstinstituut Melly and Het Nieuwe Instituut are proud to co-present an evening programme of talks and parkour based on the legacy and 101-year anniversary of Constant Nieuwenhuys. The programme centres around Nieuwenhuys’ visionary Utopian architectural project New Babylon, as well as the landmark exhibition held in 1997/8 and curated by architecture historian Mark Wigley.

During its next public gathering, Collecting Otherwise will focus on the exchange of archival material and engendering collaborations across institutions, both of fundamental importance to the understanding of archival material and the constitution of ‘archives’ in societal contexts. How does an archive enter, live throughout, and possibly leave the institution? In a collaborative and networked effort with other organisations and initiatives, the evening will centre on making adaptations to the way we collect, acquire and collaborate with, and for, under-represented communities in the light of transinstiutional approaches. Space will be made to reflect on ongoing formation of tools and methods by the Working Group members within the project, such as the Archival Care Rider and the Asterisk. 

Why are YouTube video titles often half capitalised? Will your TikTok video become more popular if you use a ring light? And how does the content on your social media feed come into existence? While content creators on social media are not usually equated with film directors, musicians or designers, they nevertheless make an important contribution to our daily media consumption and to digital culture. In the Significant Content event series, popular creators from various social media platforms talk about the artistry behind their work.

In the third episode of the talkshow STATEMENTS, a collaboration between Shay Kreuger and Het Nieuwe Instituut, Shay talks to her guests about current issues.