Spent the month of May living in and ATTUNING this dramaturgy of an environment we crafted by hand at W139 in Amsterdam. It is a sonic and visual FRAMEWORK. An occupied space for INTELLECTUAL SQUATTERS like me to articulate POETIC ENJAMBMENTS, shaping character with each other in this former performance theatre and artist-driven space. It channels the conditions of the squat — survival, care, resistance — through architecture, movement, print, and sound.
The GARDEN OF LEARNING is the ARTERY AREA, located in the center of speech, writing, and dance. Grounded and rooted in the Rotterdam/Amsterdam grow community, canopied by tent-like theatre curtain drapery, while rhythmically painted edges act as score-making, placing the colors as nods to movement building. These archival sub-textures reveal traces of the people’s voices, hands, dreams, and geographies. Inhabiting the architectural, columnist vertices FEEL like encountering tall trees that make up a grove in an encoded forest where the poems, prints, books, and oral stories can breathe, iterate, and support one another.
Close by is a LISTENING SESSIONS STATION where you can listen to my other collective: Detroit’s Sterling Toles’ music with Wes Taylor’s record design. Their deep roots in printshop, Underground Resistance, Motown, and Archer vinyl pressing plant INVITE the plants to grow in the way of the village’s faith. A second spine to W139’s site of origin, with CEREMONY as a gesture to consider how structure, sound, and freedom interact.
The public is invited to meaningfully participate and build culture with these PPP learning environments in the way of printing, publishing, binding books, sonic performances, dance workshops, confidence building in runway walking, garment-making, even a radio talk show with circularity in the thinking framework of a COMMUNITY CENTER. All are welcomed to TRANSDUCE the space into their own, while respecting the cultures that helped shaped this room. We have also installed a printshop with a sink, and as part of the 2 month exhibition—I will be activating the space to teach a Suminagashi workshop in July.
Stay tuned, Linda Zeb Hang DHZ Werkplaats (2024 — 2025) Rotterdam NL
DHZ–PPP Exhibition May 23 — July 27, 2025 W139 139 Warmoesstraat Amsterdam NL
