Radical Space: Djuwa Mroivili, Ashley Stapelfeldt and Munganyende Hélène Christelle (2025)

Radical Space began as an artistic experiment in Amsterdam Southeast, questioning gentrification through performances, installations, film and healing rituals — a way of decoding how spaces are shaped by power and how we can reclaim them for collective liberation. Now at Internationaal Theater Amsterdam (ITA), Radical Space has found a new home, deeply rooted in history. Here, we use our art as a tool to confront the institution's colonial legacies and imagine liberated futures. This week, the first edition of Radical Space features Richard Kofi, who is teaming up with singer Ashley Stapelfeldt and author Munganyende Helène Christelle. Through music and poetry, their performance reminds us of the friendship between people like James Baldwin, Miriam Makeba and Nina Simone, whose spirit of emancipation resonates with us today.

Through song, piano music, and poetry, an intricate cultural dialogue unfolds, reflecting on the struggles, triumphs, and interconnected legacies of a generation that redefined art and activism.

Radical Space, the Bookshop and the 'poor door' Where The Bookshop stands, there was once an entrance and staircase that gave the working class access to the cheapest seats at the top of our theatre, separating them from the elite who entered through the imposing main entrance on the other side of our building. These class divisions are of course no longer actively used, but could it be that legacies of this past live on in the way our sector functions?

Radical Space aims to disrupt these patterns. This program of workshops, performances and conversations will question the class structures within our institutions. Our first iterations will focus on the work of James Baldwin and his relationships with other artists and intellectuals of his time. His legacy allows us to re-imagine theater as a space for solidarity, homecoming and healing.

📅 Date: 16, 17 and 18th of January

📍 Location: ITA, The Bookshop

Radical Space in theory

The name Radical Space is inspired by two books: Radical Space: Building the House of the People by Margaret Kohn and Radical Spaces by Christina Parolin. Kohn examines places where the working class mobilizes and defines the meaning of space, often against the original intentions of those in power. The working class repeatedly finds creative ways to reshape space as a playful form of systemic critique and resistance against control by the ruling class, the establishment, and the state.

Parolin focuses on the rise of popular radicalism in London from 1790 to 1845, where the most innovative social ideas were exchanged in prisons, cafés, and theaters. In her book, she even presents historical documents of secret services trying to suppress the ‘radical ideas of the plebs’ by censoring the city's radical spaces. And of course, that never works out in their favor. How can our Radical Space remain a censorship-free safe haven?

This literature is one of many sources of inspirations for the activities I want to develop as a commentary on the development of Amsterdam Southeast and the role of the arts. Radical Space strives for art that questions, dissects, and decodes this complex legacy in the search for a more just and liberated future.