Kunstinstituut Melly

Kunstinstituut Melly Founded in 1990, the institution was conceived as an art house with a mission to present and discuss
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Kunstinstituut Melly is an international public institution with Rotterdam as its home base. Established in 1990, the institution explores developments in contemporary art worldwide. We have been commenting on the social and political predicament since its inception through the presentation of exhibitions, symposia, live events, educational programs, and a bold publication arm.

02/04/2026

[ENGLISH BELOW]
📝 Gratis Zaterdagworkshops met
April 2026

👉 Aanstaande zaterdag start de eerste sessie van de gratis workshopreeks “Wat je nog niet zei” van Nurdan Ariöz!

“Wat je nog niet zei” is een open driedelige workshopreeks waarin deelnemers via collage, object en stem hun persoonlijke verhaal vormgeven in spoken word. De sessies zijn toegankelijk voor iedereen en resulteren in teksten en beelden die samen een groeiend digitaal archief vormen van ongeziene stemmen en verhalen.

🕐 13:00–15:00
📍 Educatie & Participatieruimte, Kunstinstituut Melly
🎟 Gratis toegang | Voor alle leeftijden
🔗 Link in bio!

Workshopschema:
• 4 april — Beeld als begin: intuïtieve collages en spoken word
• 11 april — Het voorwerp dat jou draagt: schrijven vanuit een persoonlijk object
• 18 april — De stem die nog niet gehoord is: ode aan een verborgen talent of een stille aanwezigheid

[ENGLISH]
📝 Free Saturday Workshops with
April 2026

👉 This Saturday marks the first session of the free workshop series “What You Haven’t Said Yet” with Nurdan Ariöz!

“What You Haven’t Said Yet” is an open three-part workshop series where participants shape their personal stories through collage, objects, and voice in spoken word. The sessions are open to everyone and result in texts and images that together form a growing digital archive of unseen voices and stories.

🕐 1:00–3:00 PM
📍 Education & Participation Space, Kunstinstituut Melly
🎟 Free entry | All ages welcome
🔗 Link in bio!

Workshop schedule:
• April 4 — Image as a Beginning: intuitive collages and spoken word
• April 11 — The Object That Carries You: writing from a personal object
• April 18 — The Voice Not Yet Heard: ode to a hidden talent or quiet presence

02/04/2026

[ENGLISH BELOW]
📝 Gratis Zaterdagworkshops met Nurdan Ariöz
April 2026

👉 Aanstaande zaterdag start de eerste sessie van de gratis workshopreeks "Wat je nog niet zei" van Nurdan Ariöz!

"Wat je nog niet zei" is een open driedelige workshopreeks waarin deelnemers via collage, object en stem hun persoonlijke verhaal vormgeven in spoken word. De sessies zijn toegankelijk voor iedereen en resulteren in teksten en beelden die samen een groeiend digitaal archief vormen van ongeziene stemmen en verhalen.

🕐 13:00–15:00
📍 Educatie & Participatieruimte, Kunstinstituut Melly
🎟 Gratis toegang | Voor alle leeftijden
🔗 Link in bio!

Workshopschema:
• 4 april — Beeld als begin: intuïtieve collages en spoken word
• 11 april — Het voorwerp dat jou draagt: schrijven vanuit een persoonlijk object
• 18 april — De stem die nog niet gehoord is: ode aan een verborgen talent of een stille aanwezigheid

[ENGLISH]
📝 Free Saturday Workshops with Nurdan Ariöz
April 2026

👉 This Saturday marks the first session of the free workshop series “What You Haven’t Said Yet” with Nurdan Ariöz!

“What You Haven’t Said Yet” is an open three-part workshop series where participants shape their personal stories through collage, objects, and voice in spoken word. The sessions are open to everyone and result in texts and images that together form a growing digital archive of unseen voices and stories.

🕐 1:00–3:00 PM
📍 Education & Participation Space, Kunstinstituut Melly
🎟 Free entry | All ages welcome
🔗 Link in bio!

Workshop schedule:
• April 4 — Image as a Beginning: intuitive collages and spoken word
• April 11 — The Object That Carries You: writing from a personal object
• April 18 — The Voice Not Yet Heard: ode to a hidden talent or quiet presence

01/04/2026

✨ Spring Opening at Kunstinstituut Melly: Hajra Waheed, Basel Abbas & Ruanne Abou-Rahme ✨

This spring, Kunstinstituut Melly presents two solo exhibitions opening on Saturday, 18 April 2026.

Featuring newly commissioned works, the exhibitions are presented as part of our ongoing series Call & Response, highlighting our commitment to supporting artists whose practices resonate with current geopolitical demands while imagining new possibilities.

There Is a Fountain Even If Pale That Flows Beneath Us All
Guest curated by Hera Chan
Hajra Waheed extends the voices of leaders of liberation struggles under incarceration through the language of sound, drawing, and painting.

Prisoners of Love: Until the Sun of Freedom
Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme compose a poetics of resistance, layering songs, testimonies, and sonic fragments as a means of moving through and unsettling repressive structures.

🟣 Opening Day Program
12:00 PM – Doors open
1:30 PM – Welcome and opening words
Rosa de Graaf, Curator of Exhibitions and Commissions, and Hera Chan, Guest Curator
2:00 PM – Listening session by Hajra Waheed
3:00 PM – Drinks, food (in collaboration with Koken Met Status), and music in MELLY
3:30 PM – Dance activity for kids
6:00 PM – End

Join us in celebrating these exhibitions together with the artists!

Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Prisoners of Love: Until the Sun of Freedom, is co-commissioned by Kunstinstituut Melly in collaboration with The Bell / Brown Arts Institute, Brown University, MACBA Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona, and Nottingham Contemporary.

🔗 More info: https://www.kunstinstituutmelly.nl/en/programs/9230-spring-opening-at-kunstinstituut-melly-hajra-waheed-basel-abbas-ruanne

✨ Recap — Final Event: CLiP #7: The End is Both Near and Already Here; Prepping for Collective Beginnings ✨Last Saturda...
31/03/2026

✨ Recap — Final Event: CLiP #7: The End is Both Near and Already Here; Prepping for Collective Beginnings ✨

Last Saturday, 28 March, the Space for Education and Participation came alive with the final public event of CLiP #7. Participants shared their ‘letters to the future(s) we are preparing for’: multimedia reflections on the skills, knowledge and positions developed over the 6-month Collective Learning in Practice programme (CLiP).

📚 We also opened a small info market featuring publications and materials from the CLiP #7 library, giving everyone a chance to dive deeper into the work developed over the past six months.

✨ Good news! The exhibition has been extended for one more week! Don’t miss the chance to explore CLiP #7: The Garage School of Prepping Otherwise.

Curated by: The Garage School
Featuring: Janey Roana , Nik van der Meulen, Urvee Kulkarni, Pavlos Theodoru , Hooi-Ying Zhang , Aden Mete, Camilla Yakupova, Sol Munoz, Auguste Sturlyte, Sophia Wirth, Leo Rij, and Anarcha

Swipe through to see moments from the day →
📸 by Liza Wolters

🥄 Monthly Suitcase Economy Brunch #5 🥄Monthly Suitcase Economy Brunch is a testing ground for experimenting with relati...
27/03/2026

🥄 Monthly Suitcase Economy Brunch #5 🥄

Monthly Suitcase Economy Brunch is a testing ground for experimenting with relationships, translation, economic models, and time through the preparation and serving of food. In this series artist Riet Wijnen is developing a method to build connections between different local daily contexts, past and present, by researching local preservation and fermentation histories. Each brunch involves a process of fermentation or preservation and an ingredient transported from one place to another via suitcase*. The menu predominantly features food from Limburg, a province in the south of the Netherlands, as well as South Korea and South Africa, in these two countries collaborators determine the specific locations.

*Monthly Suitcase Economy Brunch #5 includes instant yeast brought from Cape Town by Kabelo Malatsie.

For Monthly Suitcase Economy Brunch #5, donna Kukama proposed a meal prepared by Riet. At the crossing point of us moving out of winter while the Southern Hemisphere, preparing for it, we make Ledambi steamed in a chicken or sugar bean stew. This warm and comforting dish, often served during the winter season in South Africa, is accompanied by morogo and sweet potato. For dessert, madila is served with elderflower or rhubarb syrup, a staple of Suitcase Economy. In SeTswana, ledambi refers to a homemade steamed bread, also commonly known as idombolo in isiZulu. This bread can be made separately in a large pot or steamed in a stew or soup. Riet recalled her grandma’s cakes on a gas stove in an ALHO wonderpan. The pan has elements that circulate heated air around the cake in the middle. These methods are all precursors to the current steam and convection ovens.

📅 When: Saturday, 28 March 2026
⏰ Time: 11:00–15:00 (or until we run out)
📍 Where: Suitcase Economy / Ground Floor, Kunstinstituut Melly

Price: 10€
🔄 Or 5€ if you bring either a homemade fermented or preserved product, harvested produce from your own garden, or a specific ingredient for cultural dishes.

✨ See more info: https://www.kunstinstituutmelly.nl/en/programs/9269-monthly-suitcase-economy-brunch-5

📷 by Liza Wolters

Art Rotterdam 2026 is open! 💫 Visit Kunstinstituut Melly at Booth G6 at Rotterdam Ahoy and discover our limited editions...
27/03/2026

Art Rotterdam 2026 is open! 💫

Visit Kunstinstituut Melly at Booth G6 at Rotterdam Ahoy and discover our limited editions:

✨ Evidence from The Museum of Soft Labour by donna Kukama
A series of five non-identical limited edition artworks derived from The Museum of Soft Labour, a 2025 performance by donna Kukama. The performance took the guise of a guided tour addressing various forms of labour directly or indirectly related to the city of Rotterdam, focusing on forms of labour that have often been overlooked and undervalued throughout history. The Museum of Soft Labour dignified the unseen contributions that shaped the city and honoured the breaths and memories of those whose labour was never a choice.

✨ Sixteen Conversations on Abstraction Tool Two (Clock) by Riet Wijnen
On this green ceramic clock with sixteen digits, the 24-hour timekeeping system, often used for digital clocks, slips into the analog 12-hour clock system: the digit ‘16’ is placed at 4 o’clock. These time systems are often so deeply ingrained in our bodies that we no longer recognize these abstract constructs as tools. This subtle slippage opens up the rigid systems designed for us to live according to the clock.

Discover these works up close at our booth!
🔗 More info: https://www.kunstinstituutmelly.nl/en/connect/9315-rotterdam-art-week-2026

🗓 27–29 March
⏰ 11:00–19:00
📍 Booth G6

📩 For inquiries about this or previous limited editions, contact [email protected] or [email protected]

Photos by Aad Hoogendoorn

✨Sixteen Conversations on Abstraction Tool Two (Clock): a Limited Edition by Riet Wijnen ✨At Art Rotterdam 2026, Kunsti...
26/03/2026

✨Sixteen Conversations on Abstraction Tool Two (Clock): a Limited Edition by Riet Wijnen ✨

At Art Rotterdam 2026, Kunstinstituut Melly presents Sixteen Conversations on Abstraction Tool Two (Clock), a special limited edition by Riet Wijnen, who is currently presenting a solo project titled Suitcase Economy at Melly.

On this green ceramic clock with sixteen digits, the 24-hour timekeeping system, often used for digital clocks, slips into the analog 12-hour clock system: the digit ‘16’ is placed at 4 o’clock. These time systems are often so deeply ingrained in our bodies that we no longer recognize these abstract constructs as tools. This subtle slippage opens up the rigid systems designed for us to live according to the clock.

This edition is part of Riet Wijnen’s ongoing cycle Sixteen Conversations on Abstraction, in which the color green serves as a code for ‘time’. Through this body of work, she investigates overlooked and yet-unknown histories of abstraction. Her research also involves deconstructing the structures and tools we use to articulate histories and, through this process, proposing new ones.

📍 Booth G6, Art Rotterdam 2026 | 26–29 March, Rotterdam Ahoy
📩 For inquiries about this or previous limited editions, contact [email protected] or [email protected]
🔗 More info in our bio!

📷

✨Evidence from The Museum of Soft Labour: a Limited Edition Series by donna Kukama ✨At Art Rotterdam 2026, Kunstinstitu...
26/03/2026

✨Evidence from The Museum of Soft Labour: a Limited Edition Series by donna Kukama ✨

At Art Rotterdam 2026, Kunstinstituut Melly presents Evidence from The Museum of Soft Labour, a series of five non-identical limited edition artworks by donna Kukama, whose solo exhibition I Breathe, You Breathe is on view at Melly until Sunday.

These artworks are derived from The Museum of Soft Labour, a 2025 performance by donna Kukama. The performance took the guise of a guided tour addressing various forms of labour directly or indirectly related to the city of Rotterdam, focusing on forms of labour that have often been overlooked and undervalued throughout history. The Museum of Soft Labour dignified the unseen contributions that shaped the city and honoured the breaths and memories of those whose labour was never a choice.

This series of non-identical editions is evidence of donna’s approach to documenting her performances, in which memory is reconfigured into other forms, including sculpture. For her, documentation is creation. Through the transformation of what was spoken and seen, donna alchemises the unscripted, often “missed” moments in her work to result in miniature monuments. Rather than a recording of the event, these artworks present “evidence” of potential past and future memories.

Titles of the editions
1) The Troubled Bubble
2) The Corner for Calm Coexistence
3) The Massage Table for Exploitative Types
4) Hundreds of Years of Colourful Underpaid Labour 5) The Memorial for Those Whose Labour Was Neither a Choice Nor a Calling

📍 Booth G6, Art Rotterdam 2026 | 26–29 March, Rotterdam Ahoy
📩 For inquiries about this or previous limited editions, contact [email protected] or [email protected]
🔗 More info in our bio!

📷

✨Join us for Rotterdam Art Week 2026 (25–29 March) ✨Find Kunstinstituut Melly at Art Rotterdam, Booth G6 from 26–29 Marc...
25/03/2026

✨Join us for Rotterdam Art Week 2026 (25–29 March) ✨
Find Kunstinstituut Melly at Art Rotterdam, Booth G6 from 26–29 March, presenting limited-edition works by donna Kukama and Riet Wijnen, and join Riet Wijnen’s Reflections talk at Art Rotterdam on Sunday 29 March, 5–6 pm.

At Melly, explore a full week of programming:
• 26–29 March: Exhibitions Spirit Faith Grace Rage, Suitcase Economy, and I Breathe, You Breathe
• 27 March, 6–11 pm: Kunstavond XL + CLiP #7 sneak peek
• 28 March, 11 am–3 pm: Monthly Suitcase Economy Brunch
• 28 March, 1–6 pm: CLiP #7 final public event – The end is both near and already here; prepping for collective beginnings

📍 Plan your visit, save this overview, and experience it all → https://www.kunstinstituutmelly.nl/en/connect/9315-rotterdam-art-week-2026

✨ Last Chance: — I Breathe, You Breathe✨ 🗓 Closes Sunday 29 March 2026 📍 Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam Discover two d...
19/03/2026

✨ Last Chance: — I Breathe, You Breathe✨

🗓 Closes Sunday 29 March 2026
📍 Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam

Discover two decades of donna Kukama’s work in her first solo exhibition in the Netherlands. I Breathe, You Breathe brings together donna Kukama’s sound, videos, paintings, drawings, sculptures, and performance documentation spanning two decades of her artistic practice. Approaching history as a living and breathing body, donna invites us to breathe in the company of lesser-known stories, reimagine what it means to write a historical text, and to fluidly inhabit spaces of contradiction, plurality, and becoming, reflecting and mirroring the messiness of history.

Whose histories do we carry and how do they live in us?

📸: Aad Hoogendoorn en Kristien Daem

✨ Last Chance: donna Kukama — I Breathe, You Breathe✨ 🗓 Closes Sunday 29 March 2026📍 Kunstinstituut Melly, RotterdamDisc...
19/03/2026

✨ Last Chance: donna Kukama — I Breathe, You Breathe✨

🗓 Closes Sunday 29 March 2026
📍 Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam

Discover two decades of donna Kukama’s work in her first solo exhibition in the Netherlands. I Breathe, You Breathe brings together donna Kukama’s sound, videos, paintings, drawings, sculptures, and performance documentation spanning two decades of her artistic practice. Approaching history as a living and breathing body, donna invites us to breathe in the company of lesser-known stories, reimagine what it means to write a historical text, and to fluidly inhabit spaces of contradiction, plurality, and becoming, reflecting and mirroring the messiness of history.

Whose histories do we carry and how do they live in us?

📸: Aad Hoogendoorn en Kristien Daem

We congratulate artist and filmmaker Alexandre Singh on winning an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film for Two People ...
18/03/2026

We congratulate artist and filmmaker Alexandre Singh on winning an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film for Two People Exchanging Saliva (2026), co-directed with Natalie Musteata!

From 2012 to 2013, Singh was in residence at Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art (now Kunstinstituut Melly), where he developed the theatrical work The Humans. During this residency, he shared his research in monthly “Causeries,” exploring cosmology and satire, and engaging the public in his creative process.

The Humans tells the story of two spirits, Tophole and Pantalingua, who attempt to prevent the creation of Earth. Modeled on Aristophanes’ comic writings, the work portrays humans as a songful, statuesque Greek chorus, becoming the flawed mortals we are today.

The production premiered in Rotterdam in 2013 and was commissioned and co-produced by Witte de With (Kunstinstituut Melly), Performa, Productiehuis Rotterdam, Rotterdamse Schouwburg, and Preromanbritain LLC., in partnership with Festival De Keuze and BAM.

Adres

Witte De Withstraat 50
Rotterdam
3012BR

Openingstijden

Woensdag 11:00 - 18:00
Donderdag 11:00 - 18:00
Vrijdag 11:00 - 21:00
Zaterdag 11:00 - 18:00
Zondag 11:00 - 18:00

Telefoon

+31 (0) 10 4110144

Website

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About Us

Founded in 1990, Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art was conceived as an art house with a mission to present and discuss the work created today by visual artists and cultural makers, from here and afar. It organizes exhibitions, commissions art, publishes, and develops educational and collaborative initiatives. This non-profit institution has especially worked with artists, and engaged audiences, who are interested in posing challenging inquiries and articulations of our present. While its program considers the contemporary, it also regards how art has been created and experienced in the past, and it imagines the futures art can come to shape.

Recently, and after a series of public debates, the institution has come to examine the origins of its name. To read more about this, go to: Acknowledgement: Witte Corneliszoon de With.