Past projects
2024
Ever since starting our monthly Nightwalks in Utrecht in 2015, we have seen cities with our feet, again and again. Walking, as Italo Calvino wrote, “presupposes that with every step the world changes in some aspect and also that something changes in us.” We embrace these changes and invite you to come walk along.
Because walkers are the practitioners of the city, as cities are made to be walked. We believe a city is a language, a repository of possibilities, and that walking is the act of speaking that language. So no, this will not be a guided walk. You’ll be walking your own eccentric version of the city. Under cover of the darkness for we are convinced we need the nocturnal city as an alternative frame for thinking and being.
2023
ONZE STAD, ONS CANVAS
Bart and Friso programmed two walks – Richard Sennet’s principles of ville and cité in hand – at RAUM’s annual conference.
TEACHING ART SCHOOL
As in previous years we taught a semester at the Master of Fine Arts spatial practice program at the HKU.
NIGHTWALKING
We like walking at night. Yes, under cover of the darkness for – as Nick Dunn wrote – we need to explore the rich potential of the dark, of the nocturnal city as an alternative frame for thinking and being.
Nightwalking opens up both the city and ourselves. We loved our ongoing exploration of the real, the imaginary and all those places in between.
2022
NIGHTWALKING
“In a double sense, we need to haunt the streets of the city in order to preserve and protect and reinvent them. In order to make them accountable to those who inhabit them rather than those who seek to monetize them, we need both to frequent them as familiar places and, like spectres, to disturb them and make them seem unfamiliar. If they are to remain our homes – the word ‘haunt’, incidentally, is related to the Old English hām, meaning ‘home’ – the streets need to be rendered unhomely.” [Matthew Beaumont, The Walker: On Finding and Losing Yourself in the Modern City, Verso, 2020]. Find all invitations and instructions here.
TEACHING ART SCHOOL
As in previous years we taught a semester at the Master of Fine Arts spatial practice program at the HKU. In a concluding radioshow at Utrecht’s stranded.fm some of the students publicly reflected on the course. Listen here.
2021
We were very happy to be teaching another semester at the Master of Fine Arts spatial practice program at the HKU.
Nikos joined forces with the KABK Lectorate Design for an evening of Dark Wandering.
Friso contributed the soundscape Er is geen kaart. Je loopt er een to Re_Nature festival.
2020
Our Nightwalker sessions in Werkspoorkwartier Utrecht transformed into Remote Walking Sessions.
2019
Bart and Friso curated the Together.Differently. exhibition in Helsinki, Nikos offered a pic nic and Nightwalk in Prague, we all together taught a seminar “Soft data” at the Master of Fine Arts department at HKU, organised a series of Nightwalks in our home-city of Utrecht, helped our friends of Rotsoordbrug with a scenario for a live screening and started a tradition of hosting a Day of Architecture radioshow on stranded.fm.
2018
We kept on Nightwalking the Werkspoor area in Utrecht, Bart and Nikos taught a seminar at the Master of Fine Arts department at HKU, and Friso contributed an installation and soundpiece to Ternifestival.
2017
We continued our presence in Werkspoor by Nightwalking, Bart and Friso project led Uitgesproken Utrecht for Culturele Zondagen, Friso was one of the curators for Ternifestival’s ‘Come close’ project, and Bart and Friso curated the show Is this our place? for the AKV St Joost.
2016
All year long we Nightwalked Werkspoor, spring took us to Budapest for Mission Possible, Bart and Nikos presented the workshop Unmaking: Subverting the every-day at Unidee, we launched our Unmaking, or how to rethink urban narratives bookazine [see publications] and in autumn Friso enjoyed an artist in residency at Ternifestival.
2015
was the year of our metaphorical themepark Unmaking the Netherlands, based on three thematic pillars; Play, Walking culture and Urban cannibalism. It consisted of an exhibition, a series of events, hosting residencies, and the dedicated website unmakingthenetherlands.nl. On the Day of Architecture we premiered the Werkspoor Koren Opera.
2014
We were invited to host Crossing Budapest, an urban exploration workshop in Budapest, for SPRING festival we developed More future. Or: How we ate ourselves and we hosted Cartesisus Laboratory #2, the second predecessor to our Unmaking programm.
2013
Bart and Nikos presented the workshop Monument Unrealized at the University of Fine Arts in Helsinki, we hosted Cartesius Laboratory #1, the first predecessor to what would become our Unmaking the Netherlands programm, and upon invitation by Monnik we developed the Utrecht Metabolism Tours for IMPAKT festival.
2012
Expodium travelled to Incheon, South Korea to lead a bootcamp kickstarting a six-week residency Crossing Baedari, for which we invited Dutch artist Joris Lindhout. The residency concluded with two bilingual publications: Expodium Incheon Bootcamp publication and CSSTC (see publications). Bart and Nikos took part in the 53rd edition of the October Salon, the international annual exhibition of contemporary art in Belgrade, Serbia. In Utrecht, our artist in residency Anna Okrasko screened her movie Untitled at Impakt festival.
2011
Our Detroit residency programm New strategies DMC came to and end, but we opened an artist in residency in Kanaleneiland, Utrecht. It was there our practice of Nightwalking -voluntary collective night strolls in the city, followed by a discussion about the subconscious relations between the participants and the land they walked on- started, soon walks would take place in Rotterdam, Helsinki, Malmo and elsewhere.
2010
was the last year of running a ‘white cube’, and the first year of sending out artists to Detroit for the New Strategies DMC residency programme.
... and before
Ever since its’ founding Expodium has taken an interest in their surroundings, and wanted to be platform for artists interested in the relations between their art and public space. We combined presenting art with co-hosting public lectures, and teaching art-school with self-publishing books. We were younger then. We did not change that much.