One Amsterdam-specific matter has a way of bemusing tourists like no other. It’s not the openness of sex work, the coffee shops lining every corner, or that cyclists have the right of way, even over pedestrians. What truly puzzles visitors is not any of these – It’s the curtainless ground-floor windows that lay bare the private lives of Amsterdammers.
I experienced it firsthand during my first visit to Amsterdam 12 years ago. Strolling around the dimly lit streets surrounding the canals, I couldn’t help but peep into the ground floor windows, boasting opulent chandeliers and tastefully arranged flower bouquets – yet without a single curtain in sight. My curiosity kept my eyes glued to the rooms, an act reminiscent of looking at carefully assembled shop displays. But unlike window shopping, it stirred an uneasy feeling – a feeling of wrongdoing, of invading someone’s private space. Yet, I was compelled to keep looking: Is this the kind of thrill voyeurists feel?
Self-described performance art manifestation Trespassing sets out to explore that very feeling. Founded by Puck van der Werf and Charles Pas in 2023, Trespassing invites artists from different areas of the performance art world to invade, probe, and push the limits of different spaces. In their first year, they held three successful manifestations in Galerie de Schans, Rijksmuseum, and Huis Marseille. Now, after a brief hiatus, they’re coming back to invade a space near you.
This time it’s Zeedijk 128, where they’ll be presenting their first intervention titled The Living Room. From March 3rd until the 9th, daily performances held in the ground-floor window will compel onlookers to reflect on topics like voyeurism and the separation of private and public space.
Ahead of the launch of their first Intervention, the team behind Trespassing gave us an inside look into their vision.
A: What motivated you to start ‘Trespassing’ and what do you aim to achieve with it?
T: The transformation of Amsterdam’s city centre into a consumption-driven landscape has eroded the space for critical thought and meaningful social interaction. The relentless pace of gentrification intensifies this process, further diminishing the city center’s social and cultural functions. Public spaces, which should, in our view, serve as sites for community (engagement) and creative expression, are increasingly being reduced to transient zones catering to tourists, spaces that offer little invitation for genuine interaction or reflection, save for those that can generate profit. This shift has resulted in the decline of both the city’s character and the lives of its residents.
“The transformation of Amsterdam’s city centre into a consumption-driven landscape has eroded the space for critical thought and meaningful social interaction.”
In this context, Trespassing challenges this trend, demonstrating how art, specifically performance art, can inject a vital and meaningful dynamic back into the urban fabric. We invite both locals and visitors to experience the city from an alternative point of view, encouraging them to pause and reflect on what often slips unnoticed, while reconnecting with their immediate surroundings and, if we succeed, the broader social environment.
Since day one, Trespassing has embraced a site-specific approach. We draw inspiration from the interventions of 1970s theatre and mime collectives, which reimagined Amsterdam’s public spaces as artistic stages. Our focus is on creating interventions that carve out space for interpretation, imagination, and fresh perspectives. Trespassing is not just an exploration of the urban landscape, but an attempt to transcend the commerciality of everyday life, offering a temporary and localised community a platform for creativity, curiosity, and dialogue.
At its core, Trespassing is about forging unexpected encounters between art and the public. We seek out vacant, often forgotten spaces, typically old shops in Amsterdam’s Red Light District, that await their next tenant. These are the places where we reintroduce performance art, returning it to the sites where people naturally come together. Through our interventions, we aim to provoke moments of wonder, disruption, and introspection, encouraging passers-by to question the role and meaning of urban spaces in the context of a rapidly changing city.
A: Trespassing’s upcoming Intervention The Living Room sets out to explore the idea of the ‘eye as a weapon’ in regards to Dutch people’s curtainless windows that turn most passers-by into onlookers. Why did you choose to focus on this idea? Is there some sort of anecdote behind the inspiration for this very first Intervention?
T: The idea for our upcoming intervention began in an unexpected place, namely the living room of two team members, Puck and Taylor. We lived together in the Nieuwmarkt area, right next to Amsterdam’s Red Light District. Our ground-floor apartment had its curtains rarely drawn, and this openness led to many curious onlookers. People would snap photos of us making coffee in our underwear, knock on the windows to wake up our sleeping cat, and sometimes even ask whether they could have a look inside. What felt like an ordinary part of our daily lives became a performance for strangers on the street.
Years later, when Puck learned that Trespassing could return to the same neighborhood, she started to see this phenomenon in a new light. A tourist explained to her how shocking it was to witness something so private being put on display, and how awkward he had felt in the act of looking. While experiencing this ‘cultural shock’ he realised that he felt ashamed of himself, more so than the person exposing their private space… For he felt caught in the act of voyeurism. This dynamic became the perfect starting point for our intervention series.
“We want our artists to bring their own interpretations to the idea of ‘the eye as a weapon.’ For us, this concept feels relevant in many different contexts, whether it’s about the curtainless windows of Amsterdam, or broader political issues today”
Trespassing is not just interested in the issues of tourism, spectacle culture, and voyeurism, but also in how these themes play out in performance art. In the early stages of creating our curatorial concept, we were inspired by Susan Sontag’s writings on photography. We want our artists to bring their own interpretations to the idea of ‘the eye as a weapon.’ For us, this concept feels relevant in many different contexts, whether it’s about the curtainless windows of Amsterdam, or broader political issues today. The act of looking holds power: sometimes it connects, sometimes it objectifies, and at times it can even feel like a violation. This is the dynamic we hope some of our participating artists are willing to explore and question in our upcoming interventions.
A: Your website mentions that your goal is to push your audience into a state of reflection through aesthetic disruption, which in turn is important in changing ‘our institutions and Amsterdam city centre for the better’. What is ‘for the better’ for you? Finally, I’m curious will you hold more interventions and/or manifestations in Amsterdam city centre in the future?
T: I think in part we already answered this by way of the first question. And to be honest it is quite a tough question to answer properly I feel ;). It does so in a similar vein as what we aim to do by way of our manifestations (as opposed to our interventions), namely to set something in motion in which it gradually becomes clear what the final outcome shall be.
“Good art gives the opportunity to leave things open for interpretation and provides people with just enough clues to awaken their sense of imagination and criticality”
Nevertheless, I personally believe that the power that art has when it comes down to ‘change’, mostly lies in its ambiguity. Good art, in my opinion, gives the opportunity to leave things open for interpretation and provides people with just enough clues to awaken their sense of imagination and criticality. In this way you can stimulate a culture by offering a space in which new perspectives can arise. Perspectives that in their turn, can pave the way for change. And, as we have mentioned before, a consumption-driven landscape leaves no space for interpretation or critical thought. We, on the other hand, would like to encourage the latter.
And yes! Interventions will be taking place at different moments in the city center of Amsterdam throughout this year. You’ll find them behind curtainless windows on ground floors. You will be able to recognize that a performance will be happening soon, by way of our self-designed curtains that will be identical for each performance and will be hung up a week before the curtains will reveal the next artist!
Make sure to visit Trespasssing’s Intervention I ‘The Week Before’ happening every day from 18:00 – 21:00 starting March 3rd until the 9th at Zeedijk 128. More information here.
