For best experience please turn on javascript and use a modern browser!
You are using a browser that is no longer supported by Microsoft. Please upgrade your browser. The site may not present itself correctly if you continue browsing.
VOX-POP VOX-POP

Call for Emerging Artists

A collaboration between VOX-POP’s Close-Up team and Allard Pierson's Special Collections

VOX-POP’s Close-Up team invites submissions from emerging artists for a three-week exhibition opening on 11 June 2026. The exhibition will be curated in response to the Surinamica collection at the Allard Pierson, engaging with questions around colonial history, power and memory. You don’t need prior knowledge of the collection to apply. If your practice explores themes such as power, memory, resistance, care, knowledge or institutions, we would be very keen to hear from you.

We are Alicia, Eva, Madelief, Marina and Toer, students forming the Close-Up team at VOX-POP, the creative space of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Amsterdam. This will be our first ever exhibition, organised in collaboration with the Allard Pierson. Throughout the process, we will work with an advisory group who will act as a sounding board, helping us shape the project with care, accountability and attention to power dynamics.

The Allard Pierson's Surinamica collection
The Allard Pierson's Surinamica collection

Context

Our exhibition is developed in dialogue with the Surinamica collection and the exhibition Not My Soul: On Slavery, Law and Freedom. The Surinamica collection brings together historical material relating to Suriname and its colonial past, while Not My Soul reflects on systems of oppression and the ways enslaved people expressed their humanity under constrained conditions. We approach these materials as a starting point for broader questions.

The Allard Pierson's Surinamica collection
The Allard Pierson's Surinamica collection

What does it mean for a museum or university to hold a collection shaped by colonial power, and can such an institution genuinely change? Through contemporary artworks, we aim to explore what institutional change might look like. We are interested in work that critically engages with the structures of museums and universities, and that imagines what a just and transparent space for knowledge production could be. We also welcome practices that look beyond formal archives, exploring how knowledge lives in collective memory, rituals, everyday encounters and oral traditions, as well as practices that create sensory or embodied spaces for alternative ways of knowing: through sound, touch, movement or other means, rather than relying solely on text. (Your work does not need to explicitly reference Suriname, the Surinamica collection or Not My Soul.)

What we’re looking for

We will select 7 art works by emerging artists working in any discipline. Whether your practice involves visual art, sound, digital media, textiles, poetry or something in between, we would love to see it.
Note: As the exhibition opens on 11 June, we are looking for completed works or projects in their final stages.

Practical details

  • Dates: The exhibition will take place from 11 June to 2 July 2026
  • Location: VOX-POP (BG 3)
  • Honorarium: Selected artists will receive an honorarium of €150 per work.
  • Deadline for submissions: 10 May 2026.

How to apply

Please email a short bio or portfolio and a brief description of the work you would like to present, including how it connects to the above themes, to voxpopcloseup@uva.nl.

If you’re unsure whether your work fits, do feel free to send it — we’re happy to take a look.