Last week I went to a small neighbourhood event in Amsterdam Oost: IN DE KOST (11 to 27 September 2026), a project by Indonesian artist Arie Syarifuddin, a member of Jatiwangi Art Factory, developed during his six-week residency at De Poorthuisjes, on Molukkenstraat.
The project is part of Ode aan de Gemeenschap (Ode to the Community), a year-long programme at De Poorthuisjes bringing artists and local residents together in four artist residencies to explore what community can mean today.
IN DE KOST was launched with a small pop-up market, called Apamart?, after the Indonesian word apa? (what?), the same market Jatiwangi Art Factory runs at home, where artists, friends and neighbours brought something they made to be enjoyed by everyone. These are the kind of projects that happen around the city where you get to meet locals and really interact with each other. I don’t often have time to attend these events – we all tend to gravitate to the ones that take place at big museums or institutions, don’t we? But this is where the heart of the city is, in the small events gathering neighbours and where strangers become friends over an Indonesian home-made soup.
De Poorthuisjes are a great example of what people can do when they set out to transform a place. One of these little houses used to be a public toilet, built for people going to the concerts in the courtyard of the Van der Pek block, and they have now been transformed into gathering and art spaces, run by Stichting LOLA.
IN DE KOST means ‘to board’ in both Indonesian and Dutch. Arie is staying at De Poorthuisjes for six weeks and is using the space as a base from which to meet neighbours to exchange stories about sugar, in relation to the historical colonial ties between the Netherlands and Indonesia, a topic of his larger, long-term research. During his residency here, he went, together with Klazina, the ‘housing supervisor’, and knocked on neighbours’ doors asking for some sugar. He also performed a ceremony inspired by the Indonesian tradition of Tebu Manten, in which sugar cane is symbolically married in gratitude for the harvest. In Java it is held just before the milling season starts, and a pair of sugar canes are dressed up as bride and groom and carried in procession to the mill. This happened in a former sugar factory in Breda: they married the Sugar Cane from Jatiwangi with Sugar Beet from the Netherlands. I loved this story, as I’ve never heard about the ceremony before.
In parallel, Klazina is running the Klazien-o-theek, a space for exchanging and bringing creative ideas to life in connection with the local community, a project by the artist Marieke van Rooy. There are multiple workshops and if you want you can become a member of this little club for free, by filling in a card and dropping it through the letterbox. Klazina gets inspiration from Clasien Meursing (1884–1962) who worked as a housing supervisor in the Van der Pek block from 1919 to 1946. As a trusted point of contact for the residents, she played a unifying role within the housing block, an important part of which was her organisation of creative clubs. There were as many as twenty of them: theatre, arts and crafts for boys and girls, choirs, and a library.
I’ve spent some time there talking to people and eating Indonesian food prepared by Arie, including a sweet mung bean soup, but also sweets brought in by the neighbours. The atmosphere was very friendly and warm, and I felt among friends. The big courtyard filled with people from the start; some stayed the whole day, others came and went. They all ate, socialised, played and felt part of a community.
What is still on
IN DE KOST runs until 27 September at De Poorthuisjes, Molukkenstraat 68–70, open Monday to Friday from 15.00 to 19.00 and at the weekend from 13.00 to 17.00. On 17 September, Arie took part in a conversation at Framer Framed called Decaramelism: On Sugar and Community, with Lara Khaldi of De Appel, Marieke van Rooy of Ode aan de Gemeenschap and Simon Kentgens of Clublokaal, followed by a shared meal back at De Poorthuisjes.
The project closes on 27 September at 15.00 with Forum 27an, the discussion forum Jatiwangi Art Factory started in 2008, where people from different backgrounds come together on the 27th of every month to talk about ordinary life. For the finissage it travels to Amsterdam, and the subject is the future of the Klazien-o-theek. The Klazien-o-theek itself meets on 19 and 26 September from 16.00 to 17.00, with a children’s club on 16 and 23 September from 15.00 to 17.00. Everyone is welcome at all of it.
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