Exhibitions in Cultural Heritage
We are EX: EXbunker, EXboot & EXtern. We were once a World War II bunker and a former Zandpad prostitution boat. Now we fill our spaces monthly with groundbreaking new art. Come take a look!
We are EX. Groundbreaking, accessible, and dedicated to emerging artists.
It began in 2014 with EXbunker in a former World War II bunker in Wilhelminapark. In 2019, EXboot was added, an exhibition space housed in a former prostitution boat at 't Zandpad.
We present art to everyone who encounters us in the unique public spaces where we are located. Admission is free, and our doors are open—especially to those who don't often encounter art.
The artists presenting their work are often recent graduates. For artists in this phase, EX offers a venue to exhibit, as well as support in the form of coaching and a budget for the realization of their work. The artists are often present at their work as mentors or speakers during the exhibition reception.
EX brings accessible, groundbreaking art to a diverse audience of enthusiasts and passers-by.
Meet some of the artists who recently had an exhibition at one of EX's locations.
Sasja Houba (2002) is a multidisciplinary artist and designer who expresses herself through graphic design, artistic research, and ceramics. In her work, she explores the relationship between humans, culture, and nature while incorporating practical and recognizable elements to make these themes more accessible to the public. Through this approach, she aims to raise awareness of the small, often overlooked or underappreciated aspects of our immediate surroundings.
Judith Spil, a kinetic and visual artist based in Utrecht, creates moving sculptures and installations that tell a story. With titles like "Nothing Lasts Forever", she creates short statements that encourage reflection on the work's underlying themes, such as the perception of time. In her work, Judith uses existing objects and mechanical parts. These objects are given new functions and now play a starring role in the narrative. Through the movement of the work and the use of recognizable objects, Judith aims to draw viewers into her philosophical narratives, encouraging the viewers to reflect on the application of the work and its themes in their own lives.
Het Kleinste was formed (c.2019) by four individuals with a strong interest in analogue photography and darkroom printing. Come mid 2020, and Het Kleinste Kamertje found their base at De Nijverheid, in Utrecht. Their idea was to create a cozy space for people to develop their films and enlarge their negatives to prints. In addition to the craft of analogue photography, they were also idealizing the creation of a social environment. A community, where likeminded individuals can come and share their experiences, knowledge, and learn from each other. Essentially, find an analogue photography "gezelligheid".
In her artistic practice, Florentien Stikkelorum searches for moments in which the body becomes tangible again. From a need to find rest within our fast-paced world, she uses her work as a way to experience calm. She works with sensory materials such as light, sound, and space, using them to open up experiences that often go unnoticed. Her work emerges from a desire to slow down, to learn how rest feels from within in, something to return to when our shoulders creep up toward our ears and we can hear nothing but our own thoughts
Inês Da Silva Aguiar recently graduated from Fine Arts at HKU in Utrecht. Her interest in art developed at a young age as she realised that she gave expression to her thoughts and emotions in a visual form. Indeed, Aguiar’s feelings form the basis of her art and in this way, her artistic expression takes on a personal form and is entwined with her background and identity. Having a mixed ethnic heritage (Turkish Cypriot and Portuguese) and having grown up in a divided city of Nicosia in a contentious political and social environment has informed her interest in the precariousness of identity, which she explored in her final graduation show in an installation called the House of Self. Aguiar uses a variety of mediums, most particularly video, installation, fabric and linocut to explore themes of identity, memory and alienation. Her work, as well as being of a personal nature, aims to involve the audience to ponder topics that are universal to the human experience.
Iyanla Etnel is a photographer and filmmaker based in Amsterdam. Her work departs from silence, not as emptiness but as a vessel for everything that could not be spoken. As an artist, Iyanla explores how trauma settles in the body, in space, and across generations. In her practice, she moves between past and present, between visibility and the invisible, between the body as an archive and the body as a channel.
Miro Nuaki constructs symbolic narratives in which beauty coexists with weight, and vulnerability becomes a form of empowerment. Through this process of painting and translation, Nuaki finds freedom and a deeper connection to herself, while making complex themes such as female identity, family bonds, and generational trauma tangible. Her paintings evoke the feeling of dreams, where memories soften, fragment, or blend into one another.
In his work, Ken Stoové explores the personal and collective significance of migration, family heritage, and culture. His immediate family often serves as both the starting point and field of inquiry: an environment in which he feels at home and which functions as his primary source of stories and knowledge about his background. At the same time, this context provides space for critical, emotional, and in-depth research, through which Ken examines the origins, impact, and transmission of these narratives.
Care, control, affection, dominance: our bonds with animals are rarely simple. Roos Gerritsen explores the layered and often contradictory relationship between humans and animals in her video installation. Her focus lies on domesticated animals, particularly the horse, which has been deeply intertwined with human culture for centuries. She reveals how we simultaneously care for and constrain these animals, offering affection while limiting their freedom. This tension underpins her work, where multiple perspectives on human-animal relationships are presented without imposing a single truth.
rayn (b. 1998) explores their environmental surroundings to question our existence within it. they focus on the in-between where the tension between apparent opposites don’t cancel each other out but instead create space where multiple perspectives coexist.the value we assign to materials plays a significant role in their work. recurring themes include what is shaped and what remains untouched, construction and deconstruction, control and vulnerability.
You can help us by volunteering or making a donation.
Because we do not charge an entrance fee or rent for the exhibition spaces, our income consists mainly of donations and subsidies.
Donations help us keep our spaces open. Send me an email, and I'll be happy to respond. Every donation is tax-deductible because the EX Foundation has Cultural ANBI status.
Would you welcome my visitors and volunteer to look after my art? The artists exhibiting with me are often present during opening hours. Unfortunately, they're not always available, and I'd like to keep the exhibition open an extra day, namely on Fridays from 12:00 PM to 5:00 PM.
Would you like to help me for a fee of €20 per afternoon in the EXbunker?
EXutrecht is subsidized by the municipality of Utrecht
