VIVA VIVA

Join us for VIVA VIVA – Rijksakademie Art Book Fair. Find unique printed matter, and support our artist community!

For this second edition, our building will be filled with booths from more than 60 alumni, residents and special guests, showing and selling self-made publications, prints, posters, records, cassettes, and unexpected publication formats. The day includes a full programme of talks, performances and workshops.

The complete programme will be announced soon.

56 hours + Pupapot, ABC [Artists’ Books Cooperative], Alex Farrar, Angga Cipta (Kasih Graphic), Anook Cléonne, Avril Corroon, Bram Faber & Ursula Metzler, Casco Art Institute: Working for the Commons, Chathuri Nissansala Jayasiriwardena Degambadage Dona, CPR, Daniëlle van Ark / Dark Editions, Deniz Eroglu, Devika Chotoe & Ciro Monoarfa Goudsmit, Dianne Hagen, Elwina Situmorang, Erik Tlaseca, Erna Gultom, Ester Eva Damen, Framer Framed, Frederique Jonker, Guido van der Werve, Harriet Rose Morley, Hogehilweg_artlab, Ilya Rabinovich, If I Can’t Dance I Don’t Want to Be Part of Your Revolution, Joris Martens, Josje Peters, Learning Palestine, Lies Verdenius, Lili Huston-Herterich, Limestone Books & Jan van Eyck Acadmie, LiSA DiAMETR, Marcelino Stuhmer, Marjo Postma, Maurice van Es, Meiliana Yumi, Micha Patiniott, Michal Jury, Mira Asriningtyas, Mita Paramita, Mr.& Mrs. Berkeley, Naré Eloyan, Nazif Lopulissa, No Other Option, Not Yet, Off Course and Friends, Our Rags Magazine, özgür atlagan, Papaya, Reading Vigil for Palestine, Rietlanden Women's Office, Ro Buur, Ryder Books - An imprint of BYOB, Sam Samiee, Sarojini Lewis & Razia Barsatie, Silvia Gatti, Smári Róbertsson, SOC, Spookstad, Susanne Khalil Yusef, Stichting la Jetée, Ton Martens, Uitgeverij dt duidelijke taal, Varia, vo ezn && hackers & designers, Winnie Herbstein, Wouter van Riessen, and more! 

Rooted in the Latin word vivere (‘to live’), viva has long been part of artistic and cultural expressions: a call in the streets, in protests, in celebrations, and in moments of togetherness. In a time of fragmented narratives and institutional fatigue, VIVA VIVA occupies a space between joy, resistance, and insistence, offering a platform to affirm values and practices that we as artists and collectives consider meaningful.   

VIVA VIVA is both a statement of presence and a call for continuity: to recognise, hear, and share the stories that shape our lives and communities. It is a space to engage with peers and the public, amplifying our individual and collective voice.  

VIVA VIVA is an initiative of artist and Rijksakademie alum Reyhan Lál in collaboration with Rijksakademie residents, alumni, team and special guests. ⁣

11.00 –11.10
→ Print Workshop
Welcome

11.10 –11.20
→ Print Workshop
Dianne Hagen / performance

Live reading of 3 poems; ‘What’s Up, and Thus and Time’ in one fluent set underlined and intertwined by a soundscape. What is it… It is suggestive, guiding, non-linear, without facts, opinionating with an open end, with pathetic interpretations and space.

11.30 –14.30
→ Social Practice Workshop
Angga Cipta (Kasih Graphic) / workshop 

The Puzzlino workshop combines puzzle and linocut techniques in a collaborative printing process. Participants are invited to create playful and colourful composition by carving pieces to complete a collective puzzle, or select from pre-made linocuts to create a collage.

11.40 –12.00
→ Reading Room
Marcelino Stuhmer / reading

Marcelino Stuhmer presents OFF-TIMES, a conceptual art newspaper and exhibition in the form of a newspaper. He will read his short fiction piece from OFF-TIMES, ‘Vermeer’s Paradox: Experts Baffled by Impossible Photo Found in Saleman’s Case’. OFF-TIMES operates as both publication and collective exhibition in print. Rooted in the Fluxus tradition, it explores the shifting boundaries between fact, fiction, and logic- reflecting on what it means to create during an “off-time”.

12.20 –12.40
→ Reading Room
Mira Asriningtyas / book presentation

Institution-Making on Moving Ground: A Case Study of 900mdpl (2017– 2022)

A book (hybrid) presentation, introduces a self-reflective enquiry into the evolving practices of 900mdpl, a multifaceted institution rooted in Kaliurang, Indonesia. Through the lens of laku, an embodied Javanese mode of learning, the book explores how local cultural values shape decolonial approaches to institution-making. Mira Asriningtyas invites readers to consider new vocabularies for understanding the interplay between place, contemporary art, and curatorial practice.

13.00 –13.20
→ Reading Room
Wouter van Riessen / talk 

In 'Joujou Baudelaire' (Roma Publications, 2025), Wouter van Riessen takes the poetry of Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) as a starting point for an exploration of the role play of artist and muse. He does so by staging hand-crafted puppets as his protagonists. The resulting book brings together 32 photographic tableaux and a dialogue between Van Riessen and Dutch writer Cornel Bierens. In this presentation, Van Riessen will discuss his reasons for using puppets, the relevance of Baudelaire’s poetry to our image of the muse and the development of his project. For the occasion, he will show a couple of the puppets he created for it.

13.30 –15.30
→ Studio A7 (meeting point = Hall West)
Kagul / workshop

Learning the talismanic pattern making on ritualistic costumes

Southern Sri Lankan traditional performative rituals contain an amalgamation of numerous artistic practices. A branch of the performing tradition includes textile and costume making diversified regionally in the form of ritualistic “thovil” or exorcist practices to other forms of “shanthikarma” or curative/ healing rituals which contain diverse attire aesthetics. These include intricate cosmological beading techniques that communicate language of healing and transgression. In this workshop, the art platform Kagul will introduce some techniques coming from this tradition, such as embroidery, the beaded stitching process, traditional cosmic patterns and their meanings and soft sculpture making.
KAGUL is a platform that aims to rejuvenate a dying traditional textile practice, bringing its talismanic form and its historical and cultural representations to contemporary times. Aspects of its timeless approaches are to be redesigned, revoke new nuances in approaching the tradition, and find deeper roots of its existence. To create a discourse by analyzing and decoding the existence of its gendered cultural identity, representation, and historiography through the textile tradition.

13.40 –14.20
→ Reading Room
Decika Chotoe & Ciro Monoarfa Goudsmit / talk and sound performance

For VIVA VIVA, If I Can’t Dance will launch its most recent publication: the Reader Bodies and Technologies, edited by Devika Chotoe. Emerging from the reading group that accompanied If I Can’t Dance Edition IX, Bodies and Technologies is a collection of texts that inspire modes of attunement to how technologies condition and rewire the experience of our bodies. For the launch, Chotoe will be present to introduce the publication and will be joined by artist Ciro Monoarfa Goudsmit who did a ‘sonic’ intervention in the Reader. The performance will continue Goudsmit’s research into low frequencies shaking the muscles through vibrations; from relaxing the body by resonating the vagus nerve; humming the soul nerve; to, using silence as rhythm; and ask the body to fall into those gaps; to move muscles and delay into the imaginary.

14.40 –15.00
→ Reading Room
Reading Vigil for Palestine / talk

Reading Vigil for Palestine is a daily action at Dam Square to read aloud books on Palestinian history and struggle until a permanent ceasefire is achieved. Since November 2023, it has claimed public space for political education while building a self-organised audio archive of the readings and a dispersed collective library. During Viva Viva, they will make a presentation about Reading Vigil and talk about their action via photographs and a small timeline.

15.30 –17.30
→ Studio A7 (meeting point = Hall West)
Kagul / workshop

Learning the talismanic pattern making on ritualistic costumes

Southern Sri Lankan traditional performative rituals contain an amalgamation of numerous artistic practices. A branch of the performing tradition includes textile and costume making diversified regionally in the form of ritualistic “thovil” or exorcist practices to other forms of “shanthikarma” or curative/ healing rituals which contain diverse attire aesthetics. These include intricate cosmological beading techniques that communicate language of healing and transgression. In this workshop, the art platform Kagul will introduce some techniques coming from this tradition, such as embroidery, the beaded stitching process, traditional cosmic patterns and their meanings and soft sculpture making.
KAGUL is a platform that aims to rejuvenate a dying traditional textile practice, bringing its talismanic form and its historical and cultural representations to contemporary times. Aspects of its timeless approaches are to be redesigned, revoke new nuances in approaching the tradition, and find deeper roots of its existence. To create a discourse by analyzing and decoding the existence of its gendered cultural identity, representation, and historiography through the textile tradition.  

16.00–16.20
→ Reading Room
Winnie Herbstein / book presentation

‘Slamming Doors. On Falling Out and Fighting Back in a Housing Crisis’ (2025) brings together writers, academics and community organisers against the backdrop of an ongoing housing crisis. Acting as a ‘user’s manual’, the book mobilises text and images, archives and conversations to unpack the work of DIY learning, grassroots organising, and how to record, disseminate and learn from collective struggles. In 2024, co-editor and Rijksakademie alum Winnie Herbstein, was a fellow for the research project Contemporary Conflict, organised collaboratively by Framer Framed and the Department of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam. Slamming Doors is co-published by Framer Framed and University of Edinburgh Arts Collection.

16.40 –17.00
→ Reading Room
Spookstad / talk

In this session, we will talk about the meaning and the potential of radical publishing. What does it mean for publishing to be immanent to social movements and radical activism? How can books not just speak about protest, but allow protest to speak? What form belongs to a book that does not want to be a commodity – an anti-book? Spookstad is a publishing collective guided by these questions and challenges. In this session we will try make sense of them by showcasing the various projects we are currently working on.

17.20 –17.40
→ Reading Room
Rietland Women’s Office / publication launch

RWO will give a reading to launch the most recent issue of their publication series MsHeresies, which is about the ornamental in feminist collaboration. This seventh issue takes the form of four folded offset-printed posters with sampled and reworked material from the publication archive of Big Mama Rag (1972–84), specifically focusing on the issues dealing with the Palestinian and international feminist struggle. Typeset alongside this archival collage is ‘Introduction to The Weather’ (2001) by poet Lisa Robertson.

19.00 –19.20
→ Hall West
LiSA DiAMETR / performance

19.40 –20.00
→ Daylight Studio
Sarojini Lewis, Razia Barsatie & Satyakam Mohkamsing

'Labyrinth Within', site-specific performance exploring Hindustani-Surinamese culture. Lewis delivers spoken-word poetry as ritual acts involving repetition, while a voice recites verses about the sea. Barsatie paints turmeric using handmade mop of yellow kitchen cloths, moving with a circular artwork and embroidering texts into curtains. Violinist Satyakam Mohkamsing provides musical accompainment.