Opening: Culture as Resistance and Radical Hope

Cultural Celebration & Identity Reclamation

Jun 16, 2025

17:30

-

23:00

Cinetol

Sliding scale starting at €5 and education events are free, if you do not have means to purchase a ticket please email us.
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We’re so excited to kick it off with all of you! We will come together to explore Culture as Resistance and Radical Hope. From reflections on memory and identity to discussions about collective artistic work, the day invites us to listen, question, and allow ourselves to imagine new possibilities. The evening closes with sound and visual performances that embody resilience and the power of radical hope in motion.

17:30 – 18:50 | Welcome Bites & Community Dinner
دو دریا dou darya, translating to two rivers from the Urdu language, was started by two sisters from Pakistan who were obsessed with recreating their moms dishes from home, and found a passion in sharing the results with their family here. dou darya hopes to show the world a different flavor of subcontinental food and share the diverse flavors Pakistan has to offer.
19:00 – 19:10 | Opening - Why This Week Matters
This short opening reminds us that showing up with hope is a political act. It’s the spark that keeps movements alive. Join us as we kick off the week by rooting ourselves in purpose, resistance, and collective vision.
19:10 – 19:25 | Umayya Abu Hanna - The Daisies and the Pop-Singer: Designing Resistance to Refugeehood in Yaffa and Haifa
Umayya will take us through two powerful narratives of Palestinian defiance against dispossession: The Daisies, a fourteen-member women’s underground cell operating in Yaffa, and a trailblazing singer-songwriter whose records—released across the Arab world in the 1930s—became an anthem of freedom. Through their stories of conscious resistance, we explore how art and organized solidarity challenged forced exile in Palestine.
19:30 – 20:00 | Keynote: Jerry Afriyie - On poetry and protest, reclaiming Dutch identity from grassroots
What does it mean to resist with our stories, our languages, our everyday lives? In this keynote, Jerry King Luther Afriyie reflects on resistance in its many forms: memory, silence, and storytelling as subversion; poetry and protest as a reclaiming of identity, and the quiet power of performing belonging in everyday life.
20:00 – 20:10 | Voices from the RWW Coalition
In this short session, three refugee-led and grassroots groups share what it means to resist through culture, and why Refugee Welcome Week must become louder, bolder, and bigger.
Screening & Discussion: Introspective: Modes of Artistic Expression and Cultural Engagement
We’ll continue with a short screening that documents statements written across Libya after Gaddafi’s fall. From there, the conversation opens: art as collective practice, representation, funding, and resistance to cultural monopolies. Facilitated by an artist, producer, and researcher, this session invites you to reflect, share, and reimagine how we create and sustain radical cultural work.
20:15 – 21:15 | Written to not remain by Tewa Barnosa 2024 (00:12:30 min)
Written To Not Remain is a video iteration of an ongoing visual investigation looking into the acts of writing on the walls across post-revolution Libya. positioning collective statements as ephemeral evidence of contemporary and historical dialogue, social commentary, war correspondences, or often silent protests.
In this video work combining archival footage and digital acts made in a virtual reality simulation, Barnosa translates and transmits a photo archive she began collecting in 2019. Serving as testimonies on the western-led manufactured wars in Libya following the Arab Spring in 2011. Elaborating on a selection from over 200 images of writings alongside a text recitation as source materials for reflection and remembrance.
Live Performances
Culture survives because we carry it; in our voices, our bodies, our stories. This closing performance brings together live music, poetry, and sound installation.The space will become more than a stage; it will represent protest art and diaspora archives.
21:20 - 21:50 Resistance in Rhythm
Syrian singer Shaza Hayek and percussionist Modar Salama join forces in a serenading performance blending voice and rhythm. Shaza, a celebrated soloist with the Syrian Opera, is known for her emotive fusion of Arabic styles. Modar, a seasoned percussionist and Syrian National Orchestra alum, brings rich, cross-cultural rhythms shaped by global collaborations.
21:50 - 22:00 Poetry by Abdo
Drawing from cultural heritage and everyday experience, he writes to explore how systems—urban, technological, or familial—shape how we remember and relate.
22:00 - 22:40 of Resonance of a River of Rhythms
A live electronic music performance by Mazen Al Ashkar with live visuals by Hadil Sakikar.
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Jerry King Luther Afriyie is a poet and human rights activist. Born in Bechem, Ghana, Jerry Afriyie has lived in the Netherlands since the age of 11 and in the Bijlmer for almost 30 years. He co-founded the movement Nederland Wordt Beter and the Soul Rebel Movement foundation. In 2011, he and other artists launched the awareness campaign Zwarte Piet is Racisme and co-founded Kick Out Zwarte Piet and the Black Manifesto.
Zinoun Abou Saleh is a music event producer and founder of Stichting RAqS, a platform supporting interdisciplinary artistic collaboration. With a background in Business Administration and experience in project management, he focuses on inclusive, cross-cultural programming and creative community-building.
Tewa Barnosa is an interdisciplinary artist and cultural producer, whose practice spans visual arts, time-based media, performance, and curatorial collaborations. Her work examines historical events and political realities rooted in the context of Libya, with an interest in language, heritage and anti-colonial modes of communication. Working with images, sounds, objects, archives, and oral literature to interweave narratives around human alienation and socio-ecological turbulence, contemporary warfare and the violations of cognitive and cultural means of resistance.
Zaydoun Hajjar is a researcher and Ph.D. Candidate in Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam while working at the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS). With a background in Migration Studies and Sociology, my research focuses on cultural production, music and migration within the context of neocolonialism, colonial structure relations and capitalist markets. Current PhD research is on Levantine musicians in Berlin and how they are impacted by current cultural structures.
Shaza Hayek is a Syrian singer who studied classical Arabic singing at the Damascus Conservatory. As a celebrated soloist with the Syrian Opera, she has captivated audiences across the Arab world and Europe, lighting up stages with her powerful voice and emotional depth. What sets her apart is her gift for blending diverse Arabic singing styles into a sound that is truly her own.
Modar Salama is a Syrian percussionist based in Amsterdam, trained in classical and Oriental percussion. He has performed with major groups like the Syrian National Orchestra and toured internationally. In the Netherlands, Modar deepens his focus on Arabic percussion, collaborating with jazz, world music, and theatre projects. His work bridges cultures and genres, bringing rich rhythm and deep musicality to every stage.
Abdelrahman (Abdo) Hassan is a poet and critical researcher based in Amsterdam. His work moves across language, identity, and infrastructure, shaped by diasporic memory and a commitment to intersectional ways of seeing. Drawing from cultural heritage and everyday experience, he writes to explore how systems—urban, technological, or familial—shape how we remember and relate. He co-founded the Landing Space Project, a platform for community poetry, and has performed at venues including Words Against Racism at Pakhuis de Zwijger and Gentle Dust at the Berlin Biennale. His piece Melodic Cairo reflects on the layered rhythms of his hometown. Whether through performance or collective practice, his poetry makes space for refusal, listening, and shared meaning.
Mazen Al Ashkar is a multidisciplinary artist exploring the shifting meanings of natural and constructed elements within metaphysical narratives such as idealism, materialism, and extractivism. The performance “of Resonance of a River of Rhythms” is an exploration of a transitional space — from chaos to organized motion — and an attempt to reconstruct a rhythm that keeps losing itself.
Hadil Sakikar is a Visual Storyteller and RAqS co-founder. She combines technical skills and creative direction to shape engaging visual narratives across mediums, ranging from real-time projections and interactive installations to branding and digital media.
Sajad Salmanpour is a sociologist, researcher, and community organizer based in Amsterdam, originally from Iran. He holds a research master’s in social sciences from VU Amsterdam, where his thesis focused on cultural transformation in Iranian society. Since 2022, he has worked at the Refugee Academy and the VICI group, coordinating projects like Limbo, which explores the uncertain status and future aspirations of refugees. In 2023, he founded Queer Work, an empowerment-based initiative supporting LGBTQIA+ refugees through coaching, skills training, and inclusive career development. His work bridges academic research with lived experience, centering care, autonomy, and resilience. In 2024, he was named one of the 25 Most Inspiring Newcomers in the Netherlands and co-authored De Vrije Vogels van Amsterdam, a tribute to the city’s free spirits.
Yordi Lassooy-Tekle is a passionate advocate for inclusive policies, social cohesion, and community-driven solutions. Yordi works to re-empower marginalized communities, particularly refugees, women, and youth, while also fostering connection and mutual understanding with host communities. Believing that integration is a two-way process, Yordi actively promotes both empowerment and awareness-raising to ensure meaningful and sustainable inclusion. With a strong background in humanitarian initiatives, she is committed to breaking down barriers, building bridges, and driving impactful projects that strengthen equity, social justice, and collective resilience.
Elena Ponzoni is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at VU Amsterdam. In 2017, she co-founded the Refugee Academy with Professor Halleh Ghorashi to create spaces that center the perspectives and knowledge of refugee communities in both societal and academic dialogues. She also serves as the director of the Co-Creation for Inclusive Knowledges Lab at the Faculty of Social Sciences (VU Amsterdam).