Close Up 9.2: Unwrap Your Birthday Ritual
- Date
- 12 February 2026
- Time
- 19:00 -21:30
- Location
- BG 3
- Room
- VOX-POP
Birthdays are a way we celebrate life and look back on the past. How we experience birthdays differs strongly from person to person: maybe you eat a cake, blow out candles, sing, meet with friends, go out, see family. Or maybe you don’t celebrate it at all.
The things we do (or don't) on our birthdays, whether repeated each year or newly created, often become rituals. These birthday rituals carry meaning and help define how we celebrate ourselves and one another. By keeping this line of thought in mind, we will dive deeper into the question of how shared birthday memories influence how our rituals are revisited.
We'll start the evening in a Kringverjaardag, followed by Irene Stengs' mini lecture in which she maps the connections between ritual practices. A poetry writing and reading workshop will be gifted to us by spoken word artist and writer Sandy Bosmans—through poetry & reflection we explore birthdays as meaningful rituals.
Come to our birthday party, bring your best birthday memories, and let us surprise you!
Practical information
This programme will take place at VOX-POP, ground floor (Binnengasthuisstraat 9). Make sure to be on time so you don't miss any cake (shhh)!
Our event is free of charge, but we kindly ask you to sign up due to limited capacity.
Irene Stengs is a senior researcher in ethnology at the Meertens Institute and holds a special chair in the anthropology of ritual and popular culture at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her research focuses on the social significance of rituals, the dynamics of contemporary commemorative culture, and the relationship between heritage-making and questions of identity politics.
Sandy Bosmans is a spoken word artist, writer, and programme maker. She has performed widely, reached the NK Poetry Slam semi-finals in 2016, co-founded Art Harder, and wrote the play Thuiskomen. Her work appears in several anthologies; she featured in Vrouwejaars (2024) and performed at De Kleine Komedie, Bellevue, and Kunstlinie in 2025. She is also a workshop leader and programme manager of Zaal X.
