Experience NDSM like you haven't heard of it yet
‍NDSM is a place where past, present and future come together. Once a bustling shipyard, now a dynamic cultural site full of artists, makers and innovators. As part of 750 years of Amsterdam, six cultural organizations invite you for seven unique walks, developed together with artists and collectives. With NDSM ART WALKS, you'll discover NDSM's hidden stories in surprising ways. Take you on a multi-sensory journey, listen to hidden histories via a fictional pirate radio station, or experience the shipyard through sound and motion. Each walk offers a new perspective on this special place. This program is made possible by the Mondriaan Fund and Amsterdam for 750 years.

‍How does it work?
From May to October, a different cultural organization presents an NDSM Art Walk every month. Tickets for these walks, which cost €7, can be reserved via this link. No time to take a walk? All tours are also converted into podcasts, produced by Visionair Ordinary, so you can listen to the stories at any time

‍Program: Saturday & Sunday at 14:00 and 16:00

• May 10 | Henk Schut - NDSM-Wharf Foundation
• May 11 | Twentyfivenineteen — Beautiful Distress
• May 31 — June 1 | Hannelore Havelaar — Over The IJ
• July 5 — 6 | Ester Kin — Treehouse NDSM
• August 16 — 17 | Rienke Enghardt — NDSM Fuse
• September 20th — 21st | Lila Bullen-Smith, Megan Hadfield & Toni Brell — NDSM-Wharf Foundation
• October 4 — 5 | Floating structures by Carlyn Westerink — Art City NDSM

Trailer:

Information about the various Art Walks:

‍A glimpse into the NDSM soul and zeitgeist by Rienke Enghardt
Date and time: August 16 - 17 at 2 pm and 4 pm
Duration: 40-60 min
Language: NL

Twenty-five years ago, Rienke ended up at the NDSM shipyard. After years of traveling around without a home base and looking for a permanent place for her practice and her mobile art project Hope Box, she immediately became involved. Between 2000 and 2005, she was part of the Construction Team of the NDSM Shipbuilding Wharf and contributes to the urban planning foundation. In 2006, she and her team Hope Box Angels single-handedly built their Hope Box Home there. Between 2018 and 2024, Rienke was part of the Balloting Committee and, since the inception of NDSM Fuse, she has run the ongoing and interactive installation HBX Cadavre Exquis, as an accessible way to be creative and meet each other.

For the NDSM Art Walk, Rienke tells the story of the shipbuilding warehouse and includes other NDSM key figures, who together represent the past, recent past, present and future. Cadavre Exquis is the shape in which Rienke takes the walk. Cadavre Exquis is based on a children's game that has been played around the world for centuries. At the beginning of the last century, the Surrealists saw the game as an expression of art and gave it its illustrious name. Hope Box has been using Cadavre Exquis in this way and to capture the zeitgeist for years. In Cadavre Exquis, a piece of paper is folded in four and someone draws a head, another person draws a chest, the third legs and the last feet. The paper stays folded until the feet are ready and a completely new drawing has been created that can be unfolded. The NDSM Art Walk ends at the HBX Cadavre Exquis drawing board in NDSM Fuse.

Vloetogen: a sensory audio walk by Lila Bullen-Smith, Megan Hadfield and Toni Brell

Date and time: September 20 & 21 at 2 pm and 4 pm
Duration: 1.5 hours
Language: EN

Step into an immersive, sensory audio walk through the NDSM site and it’s surrounding harbour area. This unique experience brings together sound, text, scent, taste and performance in a layered exploration of the site. Through a carefully composed audio journey, a narrative tapestry unfolds in which fiction and reality are intricately interwoven. Historical and socio-political dimensions of the area are made audible, tangible, and even tasteable.
Participants are invited to engage with the environment through their senses, and to reflect, through embodied experience, on the role of perception in shaping our understanding of place and history.

About the artists
Lila Bullen-Smith is an artistic researcher from South Africa/Aotearoa. Her work focuses on phenomenological, sensory-based explorations of site-specific histories, with a particular emphasis on the opaque circulation of capital and labour at the margins of the built environment. Megan Hadfield is an artist and writer who creates text-based installations. Her work reflects on systems of communication that operate between fiction and reality. Toni Brell works with installation, performance and sound. Her practice explores the interplay between emotional and material relationships through audio-tactile experiences. She works with ceramics and non-traditional instruments, using sound and texture as pathways to embodied forms of knowing.

ARCHIVE
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‍IN TUNE by Henk Schut
Date and time: May 10 at 2 pm and 4 pm
Duration: 45 min
Language: NL/EN

Podcast:

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In the 25 years that the artist has had his studio at the NDSM shipyard, he has grown along with the transformation of the location, which grew from an artistic hub to a place where new homes and commercial projects were created. The shipyard provided space for experiments, art and encounters, with artists who built their own studios and organized exhibitions. It was a dynamic, unformed place, full of potential. Now, in 2025, the artist reflects on these developments and the impact of the shipyard, which still bears the traces of change. His podcast tells the story of the past 25 years, which focused on collaboration and sharing knowledge between different disciplines. The NDSM shipyard is characterized by a unique combination of talents, from painters to carpenters, and a constant interaction between commerce and art. This dynamic offers opportunities for both personal and collective growth.

Henk Schut is a multidisciplinary artist who develops his ideas by asking questions and exploring environments, communities, history and current events. He works with craftsmen, technicians, architects and other specialists to create his works of art. Schut has an interactive approach to space, where architecture and sound are often important. His workplace, located at the NDSM shipyard in Amsterdam, acts not only as an art production studio, but also as a space for experimentation and research. Schut combines various disciplines to create and present his projects.

Sense, register and how to discover messages: A method by Twentyfivenineteen
Date and time: May 11 at 2 pm and 4 pm
Duration: 1.5 hours
Language: NL

Podcast:

During the tour, visitors will learn about Twentyfivenineteen's observation method. The public space of the NDSM shipyard will be the research field where sensory exercises will be performed, which will lead to recordings in images and language. These observations and recordings are an exercise to activate and sharpen senses in order to discover messages. Questions that may come up during the tour are: Once a registration has been made, what are the retroactive effects on the observation made? Will a trained sense perceive differently or more quickly? How do you record an abstract observation? And how can an observation lead to finding a message?

Twentyfivenineteen is a collaboration between Michelle de Vaan and Ilke van Deventer. Together, they are working on a project that will be completed in the year 2519, in just under 500 years. The question is, how to achieve this year. By sharing working methods, thoughts and ideas with current generations, they aim to reach the next generations, who will complete the work in 2519. At times of presentation and observations during workshops, messages will be formed. These messages will take on their own lives and will evolve independently to an outcome unknown to them.

Soil test Omen by Hannelore Havelaar
Date and time: May 31 & June 1 at 2 pm and 4 pm
Duration: 45 min
Language: NL
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Podcast:

Something is rotten in the state of Amsterdam, and it lies deep under the NDSM shipyard... In Bodem est Omen, you're suddenly in the middle of a radio episode of Radio Dokwerk: a pirate radio station with a journalistic edge. Hannelore Havelaar investigates; what is true of the strange stories she hears about the NDSM shipyard? Unreliable project developers, contaminated soil and secret spaces under the Y slope...
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As an audience, you are allowed to roam freely around the site. There is music, poetry, a stimulating debate, stories from an expert and much more. You will find yourself in a whole new world. One that seems almost too insane to be true. You're wondering: What's real? Who is telling the truth? Keep your eyes open and listen carefully, dear listener: if you pay close attention, you will find answers.

Hannelore Havelaar is an audiovisual theater maker. She often makes use of video, film, radio and documentaries and intertwines that with humor and narrative. She creates work that she can laugh about herself. The inquiring public is rewarded: those who dig will find.
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Art Whispers by Esther Kin
Date and time: July 5 & 6 at 2 pm & 4 pm
Duration: 1 or 2 hours
Language: EN/NL

podcast:

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The NDSM shipyard is a place to wander and be inspired by all forms of art and creativity. As an artist working in this field, I would like to show you around in a way that takes you into part of my work process.
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I think it can also encourage you to create or realize new things. By becoming aware of the images, objects, sounds or other sensations that interest you at that moment, you begin your own creative process, something that is not only reserved for artists. It can be an impetus for a new idea, plan, decision, or awareness of what is already there. By cooking like art and creative expressions in this way, you can use your personal interest even better in shaping your daily life.

Esther Kin loves the combination of emotion and movement. Two things she always tries to use in her work. Materials that work well for her include ink and brushes. She can make a big gesture without being tempted to distort or obscure anything, which often detracts from spontaneity. Finding the balance between control and expression (letting go) is a real challenge to create work that is open, inviting, courageous but not overflowing with brutality. For her current work, she worked on Motion Graphic Design, animation, illustration and calligraphy. All invisible run-up to her current developments. She enjoys supporting others in finding their creative language, with which they can give their own meaning to the things they care about.