Upcoming programmes

de Appel is thrilled to announce some of its upcoming exhibitions and public programming for the coming months. We open Sensing Interdependence next week, delving into the utopian imagination and political practices of the Italian art collective Arts For the Commons (A4C). In July we open the second iteration of de Appel Kiosk, a platform where artists and collectives develop and sell merchandise in Amsterdam’s street markets, and in September we open CacchHo CucchhA: A solo exhibition by Mercedes Azpilicueta for Children and Adults where we invite children to transform through costumes into fantastical characters experiencing play as an act of invention.

Sensing Interdependence
Opening: June 27, 2025
Public programme: June 28, 2025
On view from June 27 to August 10, 2025

Sensing Interdependence is a retrospective exhibition on the work of the Italian art collective Arts For the Commons (A4C), a collaboration between Ecuadorian artist Rosa Jijón and activist and artistic researcher Francesco Martone. The exhibition tackles the notion of interdependence between nature and humans. 

Through the perspective of A4C’s artistic methodology, the exhibition proposes to rethink interconnected empathic, tactile, and political relations in the context of the rights of nature and the rights of people(s). The works on show ask audiences to harness interdependency in order to navigate the complexities of climate justice, resistance against extractivism, the legal personhood of ecosystems, and new institutional art forms in the ecological crises of our times. By conceptually revisiting the collective’s research and production, the exhibition proposes a small archipelago of three installations hosting the artworks, curated around three core aspects of A4C’s artistic approach. These islands map geographies of mobility and communities’ resistance, going beyond anthropocentrism and the rights of nature.

Since their founding in 2016, the artistic duo ArtsForTheCommons (A4C)—Rosa Jijón and Francesco Martone—has worked at the intersection of artistic research, political engagement, and cultural critique. Their practice spans geographies and disciplines, offering a collaborative platform to amplify current challenges and collective practices in the fields of decolonization, territorial struggles, and the affirmation of biocentric approaches. Sensing Interdependence, their first retrospective, surveys nearly a decade of collaboration through video essays, installations, performances, and archival actions. 

Designed with studioamatoriale, the exhibition unfolds as an archipelago of conceptual “islands”—commons, mobility, and resistance—drawing from decolonial and pluriversal frameworks. Each section offers artworks as terrains of inquiry, tracing cartographies of memory, struggle, and ecological entanglement.

The public programme will feature Sylvia Kay, Carsten Pedersen and Fiona Dove (TNI), Roberta Bosu (Antarctic Rights), and Harpo ‘t Hart (Embassy of the North Sea), exploring the legal personhood of ecosystems and artistic strategies for pluriversal governance. The panels will be followed by the introduction to the Confluence of European Water Bodies by Christiane Bosman (Embassy of the North Sea), and a first test of the new experimental format of the Water Bodies Orchestra, presented by the Smartphone Orchestra. Fresh Stalls, a food justice platform, provides regenerative catering during the public program.

A catalogue co-published with Viaindustriae includes visual documentation and newly commissioned texts, including a new essay by scholar and activist Ashley Dawson. Kolxoz, a translocal collective, contributes both to the catalogue and the exhibition, bridging printed matter with collective imagination. 

This project is organised by Joint Cultural Initiatives and supported by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture under the Italian Council program (13th edition, 2024).

de Appel Kiosk
Between July 6–30, 2025

Rather than accepting capitalist market centered economic structures as fixed, de Appel, together with artists, seeks to explore how artistic practice can reimagine and intervene in systems of exchange. One such initiative is de Appel Kiosk: a platform where artists and collectives develop and sell merchandise as a means of interrogating and experimenting with alternative economies. The Kiosk will return to Dappermarkt and Albert Cuypmarkt between 6–30 July 2025. Exact dates will be announced shortly before on de Appel’s Instagram. Three proposals have been selected from an open call. Buurtijs by Honey Jones-Hughes & Antonio de la Hera questions ‘local’ and ‘ethical’ food production and consumption via the making and selling of ice cream. The artists create a solidarity payment structure where people are invited to pay according to their own hourly wage. Social Bank by Saemundur Thor Helgason imagines through this small practical experiment a future of socially responsible banks, by giving out interest-free, trust-based loans to passersby. de aardAppel by Özgür Atlagan & Ulufer Çelik is a dual-function stall: a micro-publishing house and a potato-salad-kiosk, where eating and publishing will merge into each other. 

CacchHo CucchhA
A solo exhibition by Mercedes Azpilicueta for children and adults
September 13–November 23, 2025

de Appel team has been working on inviting children and parents into our programmes. Our experience at some art institutions has been one where often silence and stillness is privileged, which alienates children and parents and instills social conditioning. Accommodating children enables parents to participate more fully in cultural spaces rather than being sidelined due to caregiving responsibilities. Embracing child-friendly environments means rethinking what behavior is considered acceptable in cultural spaces. We have been thinking about this recently with artist Mercedes Azpilicueta who will be employing her sculptures as characters and composite costumes for children as well as building a sensory experience where children and adults can experience play as an act of invention rather than mere imitation (Brian Sutton-Smith). Central to the project are the concepts of cacho (fragment) and cucha (shelter), framing children’s contributions as transformative pieces of a larger, evolving story. The exhibition will include sculptures turned into costumes, a large tapestry chronicling stories about the characters of the costumes, as well as several other elements for play.

Through workshops and musical gatherings, the exhibition is activated as a space of co-creation. The exhibition will welcome school children in Amsterdam during the week and the general public during the weekends. The programme will include a symposium on the inclusion of children in cultural institutions as well as on play as emancipation and disobedience.