Kunstavond: TOOLSHED x Tools for Conviviality x 35 Years of Mind & Matter

Every first Friday of the month, this art quarter transforms into the epicenter of innovative art in Rotterdam. Within one block, you'll find four art institutions that push boundaries and bring new ideas to life. V2_, WORM, MaMA, and Kunstinstituut Melly open their doors for free between 6 and 9 pm with exhibitions, installations, performances, talks, music, and more. This is where the new generation of artists and visitors comes together.

For this edition this is what you can experience at Melly:

Jam session with Memory Biwa, Lynnée Denise, Eiliyas and Robert 'Chi' Machiri
Friday 3 October 2025 | 6–9 pm | Live
A cypher on text cuts, imaginaries, sounds, dance and other methodologies of living grounded in the book Dear Science and Other Stories by Katherine McKittrick (Duke University Press). The TOOLSHED is open to the public, inviting visitors to engage directly with the research and processes of its residents. Through the Pungwe Listening Rotations, audiences are invited not only to listen but also to participate in new forms of collective making, institutional questioning, and artistic experimentation.

SNEAK PEAK: Tools for Conviviality #3 by Riet Wijnen & collaborators: Suitcase Economy
Friday 3 October 2025 | 6–9 pm

The third edition of Tools for Conviviality continues our ongoing work to reimagine our ground-floor bookstore, café, and event space as an active, responsive environment for public life.

The new iteration titled Suitcase Economy is an experimental canteen developed by artist Riet Wijnen with collaborators: Linda van Deursen, Waysatta Fernández with Salvador Núñez from Mono Rojo, Jari Nuno / Fat Crayon Creative, Ima-Abasi Okon and Jan Wijnen. Considering time and place through various relationships, the canteen is shaped by an informal economy around food products. Used and shared during meals, workshops and study sessions, these food products are also ingredients for extending a methodology of transformation occurring during preservation and fermentation as a way to think about history, territory, networks, and relationships.

35 Years of Minds and Matter: From the Archive of Kunstinstituut Melly
Saturday 19 July — Sunday 30 November 2025

In 2025 Kunstinstituut Melly celebrates its 35 year anniversary, and in the past 10 years, the archive in its current form has come into existence. The archive was created in connection with the exhibition Were it as If of Bik Van de Pol. Their need for archival information on the institute’s relationship with Rotterdam highlighted the necessity of accessible archival resources. 35 Years of Minds and Matter is curated by Melly’s archivist marjolijn kok.