Programme 2025
WE ARE EXHAUSTED
Aren’t we? And shouldn’t we say it out loud? Everything around us is speeding up, making it easy to lose ourselves. When we look at political and social developments worldwide, despair feels inevitable. But no matter how powerless we feel, change is in our hands.
Read moreThat is why, this May, SPRING once again brings artists and audiences together in Utrecht—To experiment, reflect, and celebrate. To embrace the diversity of bodies, the multiplicity of voices, unexpected perspectives, and alternative narratives. Let’s come together and create a laboratory for possible futures. Let’s discover art that challenges us, finds words for today’s threats, and images for tomorrow’s possibilities. Art that unites us, helps us understand differences, and embraces the complexity of our reality. Let’s recharge, find strength, and move forward—together, shaping the future.
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- Installation
Dear Laila
Basel Zaraa
An intimate, interactive installation for one spectator at a time. Through a collection of photos, videos, sounds, and memorabilia, we piece together fragments from the life of a Palestinian family. The story follows a father explaining to his daughter where he grew up and why they cannot go there, reflecting displacement, resistance, and the unrelenting fight for justice.
- Performance
- World premiere
Laborious Walk
Ely Daou
For six consecutive hours each day, Ely Daou walks in loops through various locations in the public space of Utrecht, engaging in one-on-one conversations with passersby in English, French, Spanish or Arabic. You can listen in through headphones, experiencing moments of connection, (dis)connection, isolation, and the ever-shifting rhythm of the city.
- Installation
- SPRING coproduction
- NL premiere
Me, Le Corbusier, and a friend
David Bergé / Time Based Editions
After the success of Borderline Visible in 2024, the next edition of Time Based Editions will be presented at SPRING. A printed book and a soundscape come together in a temporary community. The audio guides you through mesmerizing photos and the story of two young men, one on his way to become later the architect Le Corbusier, on a seven-month journey to ‘the Orient’ in 1911.
- Installation
- World premiere
The Liminal
alaa minawi
This interactive installation explores the space between different worlds: the past, the present, and possible futures. Inspired by Arab Futurism, a movement that imagines future scenarios from Arab perspectives, it addresses themes like isolation and parallel worlds, where people regroup and create new realities. During IDFA 2024, the work-in-progress version won the Film Fund DocLab Interactive Grant.
- Topic Talk
- SPRING Academy
Topic Talk: The (de)colonised Body on Stage
Marcelo Evelin, Venuri Perera, Nicole Beutler & moderator: Eylül Fidan Akıncı
It is not unusual anymore to speak up about colonial pasts and present examples of occupation. But what shifts when we speak of bodies rather than nations? When bodies with histories of colonization—past or present, or living with the ongoing reality or fear of it—take the stage? How does this dynamic unfold when the audience is primarily from a white Western background?