Sonic Acts

Cutting-edge experiments in sound, moving image and contemporary theory. Amsterdam, Netherlands

23/03/2026

The final week of Sonic Acts Biennial 2026 is here. 'Melted for Love' enters its closing days, with a final series of events across the city. 💗 Join us for one last sequence of gatherings, performances, and reflections.

Wed 25 Mar ♥ Exhibition Tour at Framer Framed with curators Fabienne Rachmadiev and Angeliki Tzortzakaki. Moving through 'Between Fires: Irradiated Imaginations and Anti-Nuclear Solidarities', the tour connects nuclear histories, memory, and resistance, alongside buulbuul's performance 'The Burial of a Brown Goose'. Free entry.

Thu 26 Mar ♥ 'Heart Rests Twice' concert 5 at murmur. Final edition of the series with Hannah Hajar, Nour Sokhon, and Nina Garcia & Maria Bertel, exploring how sound can carry narrative, transforming and retelling stories.

Fri 27 Mar ♥ 'Redistributing Solidarity' workshop led by Joachim H. Ben Yakoub and Reem Shilleh. A one-day session exploring Arab pirate radio archives from 1980s Brussels and practices of memorial restitution through sound.

Sat 28 Mar ♥ 'In Conversation with Jeremy Deller' at Singelkerk. A lecture by Jeremy Deller followed by a Q&A with curator Zippora Elders, on folk traditions as living history, tracing how collective rituals shape memory and belonging.

Sat 28 Mar ♥ 'As We Tremble' concert evening at Singelkerk. With Dylan Kerr, Laura Ortman, and La Nòvia, the programme reimagines folk traditions through drone, amplification, and noise.

Sun 29 Mar ♥ 'The Space that Listens' at Rijksakademie. The final presentation of the 'Spatial Sound Course', where installations and performances explore space as a resonant instrument. – Fully booked.

Exhibitions at W139, Arti et Amicitiae, Rozenstraat, and Framer Framed remain open in these final days. Full timetable and tickets via: https://sonicacts.com/biennial/biennial-2026/timetable

19/11/2025

Sonic Acts Biennial 2026, ‘Melted for Love’ is beginning to take shape, and the first events and tickets are now live. Dive in👇

‘Expanded Experience’ returns to Muziekgebouw with a six-hour programme where sound, image, and architecture merge. Across two nights at Paradiso, the world-famous ‘Acousmonium’, an orchestra of around 60 loudspeakers, becomes the vessel for thirteen concerts in full spatial bloom. Four ‘Symposium’ blocks bring artists, researchers, and thinkers together for a series of conversations that open up the theme from different angles. ‘As We Tremble’ fills Singelkerk with folk stories through sonic practices of communal experience. Before the concert, join for a talk and Q&A with Turner Prize winning artist Jeremy Deller, who interprets folk traditions as forms of living history – channels through which solidarity, defiance, and joy endure beyond official institutions.

💞 There is much more to share in the coming weeks. For now, you can explore the first programme announcements on our website and buy your first tickets: https://2026.sonicacts.com/programme

Video: Anja Kaiser with Nelly Nakahara
Sound: Aho Ssan & KMRU

13/11/2025

We’ve teamed up with TMSQR to bring you the official Sonic Acts Biennial 2026 app 💞 With 200+ artists, 80 events, and twenty venues, the newly-launched app is your key to exploring the Biennial your way. �

Browse the line-up, build your personal timetable, explore exhibitions, concerts, workshops, and talks, and navigate the entire Biennial through an interactive map. You can also buy tickets to selected programme elements directly, check accessibility info, and stay in the loop with our latest updates. From 19 November, you can get your first tickets via our website and the TMSQR app.

Sound: KMRU & Aho Ssan�

→ Download the TMSQR app through: https://timesquare.app.link/SNj3T8jTgUb?_p=c91629c5981c65f8e3038fffee

28/10/2025

Meet the first artists of Sonic Acts Biennial 2026!

Guided by the theme ‘Melted for Love’ – and exploring the reverberations and ruminations of home – the Sonic Acts Biennial encompasses more than 80 events over 15 venues across Amsterdam, weaving connections between sound, contemporary art, and expanded forms of listening.

During the Biennial, you will hear performances by musicians such as KMRU & Aho Ssan, BJ Nilsen, Jana Winderen, Laura Ortman, and Mazen Kerbaj; sound works and talks from C. Lavender, Chris Watson, Jeremy Deller, Leilehua Lanzilotti, Margarida Mendes, pantea, Steve Goodman (Kode9), Sam Dunscombe, Yazan Khalili, and Yuk Hui – and see works by renowned artists such as Adelita Husni-Bey, Dominique White, Eglė Budvytytė, Femke Herregraven, Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Noor Abed, and Sébastien Robert. And much more!

We are pleased that most of the artists will present new commissioned works, created especially for the Biennial. :)

Stay tuned for more information! As ‘Melted for Love’ continues to take shape, details will follow, expanding the line-up to nearly 200 artists alongside programme and ticket details.

The Biennial takes place from 5 February to 29 March 2026.

→ Visit the website https://2026.sonicacts.com/ and check out all the bios and pics of your favourite artists.

15/10/2025

Just as every house has its walls and roof, we also built a programme outline that lays the foundation for the Sonic Acts Biennial. Taking place from 5 February to 29 March 2026 – and co-hosted by more than 15 venues in Amsterdam – ‘Melted for Love’ brings a multitude of cutting-edge events at the intersection of sound, art, and discourse.

At its heart, ‘Melted for Love’ asks what it means to create a sense of home in a world where safety and belonging can no longer be taken for granted. It considers how people and places can melt into each other to form structures of refuge, through sound, memory, and care, even when the idea of home feels uncertain.

We are excited to share the first video featuring a sound composition by Aho Ssan and KMRU and a moving image with the support of Nelly Nakahara. Evoking the theme of the Biennial, this teaser transforms architectural blueprints into a fluid concept of home – one welcoming to all who come with love – while offering a glimpse of what lies ahead in the programme:

💗 Spatial sound concerts
💗 Listening sessions
💗 Exhibition
💗 Symposium
💗 Artist talks
💗 Club nights, workshops, film screenings
💗 Educational programmes
💗 Spatial Sound Radio
💗 ‘Ecoes’ – the Biennial reader
💗 And more than 200 artists, some with newly commissioned works

→ Visit 2026.sonicacts.com to read the programme outline and stay tuned for the line-up reveal at the end of October.

Visual identity: Anja Kaiser with Knoth & Renner
Sound: Aho Ssan & KMRU
Video: Nelly Nakahara
Fonts: Bazaine (British Standard Type), Limpet (Jung-Lee Type Foundry)

01/10/2025

We are thrilled to announce the Sonic Acts Biennial, 'Melted for Love’!

📍Amsterdam | 🗓 5 February to 29 March 2026

The Biennial spans more than 80 events and 15 venues, bringing together over 200 artists for a large-scale exhibition, weekly listening sessions, spatial sound concerts and performances, a two-day symposium, artist talks, club nights, workshops, films, and much more.

In a world marked by crises, conflict, and displacement, the Sonic Acts Biennial 2026 reimagines home – not as a physical structure, but as a site of invitation, attentiveness, and care. Here, to be ‘melted for love’ means to dissolve into gentleness, allowing closeness to overcome distance, and creating a foundation for a new kind of belonging.

With open ears and full hearts, we listen, attuned to the songs, transmissions, and resonances that hold us close to one another, and that call us home.

Inspired by the Palestinian national poet Mahmoud Darwish, whose verses echo in the title, the Sonic Acts Biennial 2026 takes place across iconic Amsterdam venues such as Paradiso, Muziekgebouw, W139, Arti et Amicitiae, Rozenstraat – a rose is a rose is a rose, Stedelijk Museum, Eye Filmmuseum, Zone2Source, De Ateliers/Woonhuis, Het Documentaire Paviljoen/IDFA Institute, Oude Kerk, murmur, Singelkerk, Garage Noord, and Athenaeum Nieuwscentrum, alongside a special collaboration with Framer Framed.

→ Keep an eye on 2026.sonicacts.com and our social media, as more information and workshop open calls will be available soon!

The Biennial’s visual identity is designed by the studio Knoth & Renner with Anja Kaiser. It builds on the theme by restructuring various elements from architectural blueprints to create a home that is fluid, transformative, and welcoming to all who come with love.

Sonic Acts Biennial 2026 is supported by Creative Industries Fund NL, Amsterdam Fund for the Arts, Fonds 21, Mondriaan Fonds, Hartwig Art Foundation, Het Cultuurfonds, Netherlands Film Fund, Cultuurloket DigitALL, and Performing Arts Fund NL, as well as New Perspectives for Action, a project by Re-Imagine Europe, co-funded by the European Union, and the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.

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Amsterdam

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https://www.sonicacts.com/

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