As part of Amsterdam's 750th anniversary, KunstRAI and Gerrit Rietveld Academie jointly present the work of 22 Amsterdam-based artists who graduated in 2022, 2023 and 2024. Boundaries of Belonging(s) is a group exhibition, curated by Jimena Casas and Mariken Overdijk, that brings together works in painting, photography, installation, video, textile and performance in Hall 8 of the RAI Amsterdam from 30 April to 4 May 2025.
In Boundaries of Belonging(s) the city of Amsterdam is regarded as a canvas, a ground and a surface on which we navigate and wander and where artists negotiate the redefinition of an urban territory. Each work relates to symbolic-territorial boundaries within the city, reflecting the artist's personal perspective. The different layers of the city take on meaning through the multitude of passers-by,
the temporary and the permanent,
insiders and outsiders,
exposed and obscured, public and hidden,
all together revealing an Amsterdam choreography of wondrous temperaments.
Amsterdam is a city in constant state of repair, recuperation, restoration, rebuilding reputations – a city of overflows and floods, of seas and rivers, of mud and baked clay, seafarers and landlubbers, seeking for a sense of belonging. One might ask: who defines a boundary line – permanent, imaginary, temporary or porous – in a city that is constantly changing? The harm caused by mechanisms of exclusion and intolerance is intensified in the current political landscape. This awakens the urgency and need to view the city through the eyes of the other: from a near or far neighbour, from the periphery, from a loved one, by listening to the voice of resistance, or narratives of a bypasser.
What unites all the works presented is the diverse approaches through which urban space is defined. These are artworks that reconstruct, imagine and reconsider both the public, semi-public and the very personal.
(unisono)
Artworks are bordering each other:
There are silent conversations,
we come-to-go-to-depart-to-arrive,
A painting murmuring to a video,
No\one is from Amsterdam.
A sculpture whispering to a photograph,
Every\one is from Amsterdam,
Amsterdam\one containing all.
A sculpture whispering to a photograph,
Shush!
Participating artists are:
Amalie Sveske Ourø, Caro de Valk, Daichi Fuwa, Giada Alessandra Pieber, Hala Namer, Ingeborg Kraft Fermin, Izzy Lee, Jesse Andriesse, Karl Götter, Layla Gijsen, Lian Bi, Max Onink, Maxi Ehrenzeller, Neeltje van der Vlugt, Njaay Mame Saliou Assile & Erin McClain, Paulina Koeleman, Stella Sterk, Sterre Pomper, Tijmen Steenvoorden, Tom Alon and Yawen Fu.
About the curators:
Jimena Casas is a poet, a visual artist, teacher and literary programmer at Perdu and
Project Space Rozenstraat, a Rose is a Rose is a Rose, Amsterdam.
Mariken Overdijk is a performance artist, urban choreographer, writer, as well a coordinator/teacher at the VAV-moving image department of the Gerrit Rietveld Academie.
Graphic design by Rietveld alum Isa Dahan