MENSEN ZEGGEN DINGEN

Dean Bowen (The Netherlands) is a poet, performer, and programmer. In his work, he explores how human identity relates to society, as demonstrated in his multilingual collection Bokman (2018). His powerful performances earned him the first Van Dale SPOKEN Award, and he served as the city poet of Rotterdam in 2019 and 2020.

In Ik vond geen spoken in Achtmaal (2020), an unnamed figure uses diary entries, poems, confessions, and rituals to describe a search for what remains of a person long after they have died.

He has published poems on online platforms such as SampleKanon and Hard//Hoofd, and in literary magazines including nY and Kunsttijdschrift Vlaanderen. He teaches performance literature and poetry in the Creative Writing program at ArtEZ.

Together with the Flemish writer and musician Joost Hoekaf, he creates introspective hip-hop in the project Vudu Cru. His next collection, Masc:r, will be published in January 2026.

Her work emerges from reflecting on emotions. She investigates the traces a feeling leaves behind and where it can be found once it has passed. She considers the sudden onset of a feeling, its gradual withdrawal, its return, and how it stretches across time.

She works from an archive of notes, drawings, photographs, and paintings. A single emotion often exists in multiple fragments spread across different media. She approaches these archival fragments as distinct voices that relate to one another. She develops an archive into overarching works: artist books, exhibitions, or declamations.

The book Het is jij of ik, published by Unformed Informed, is a composition of text, poetry, photography, and graphic design. It guides us along the irreducible aspect of the other—how we relate to one another through the interplay of online and offline communication. It questions our identity, which is always shaped in relation to another person. If we were to strip away all our facets, what would remain of us?

At the beginning of the book, several overviews offer ways of navigating this archive.

Some works are created in a single painting or writing session, driven by the intensity of a feeling. At other times, a feeling requires more time and layering. Meaning unfolds through the coming together of archival fragments. “I arrange until I experience resonance, until the work begins to carry itself.”

Amber M. Arif (24) (@spokenbyama) is a spoken word artist and poet, born and raised in The Hague, with Surinamese-Hindustani and Pakistani roots. Word art has fascinated her throughout her life. From a young age, she has been writing texts and stories in self-made booklets. For her, creating—in any form—is inseparably connected to being human.

Her work mainly explores the stories we tell ourselves and those told about us; the things we cannot see but still seek to understand; and how, despite everything, we remain inextricably connected to the people, stories, and histories around us.

For her, writing is also often an exploration of the political within the personal and the personal within the political. Science, social studies, contemporary challenges, spirituality, self-inquiry, and the poetry of the everyday all intersect in her work.

You may know her from performances at the Laaktheater, Podium Noord, the Central Library, and with Poetry Circle 070 as a participant in the January 2024 season.

She writes both independently and in collaboration with or on commission for various organizations, such as municipalities and theaters. In addition, she organizes a recurring spoken word platform in collaboration with The Lighthouse and Events at The Hague University of Applied Sciences. She is currently working on a poetry collection.

Douwe Hovingh writes poetry, fiction, and miscellaneous notes. His work is rarely about the same thing; if it is, that is purely coincidental, and it’s best not to trouble the poet with it. The poet’s identity is made possible in part by the observer and by chance.

He regularly performs on stages, on the radio, and in the local bar around your corner.

Who the f*k is Mike? Who the f*k is Rik? And what the f*k is a Mye_Taai? It’s all-day authentic, it’s for the future. You’ll might get it in five years or sooner. No apologies, no filter. A big celebration, error and ultra parties. And it is: we just do. Enter the “Rave Club For Two”. Mye_Taai is an interdisciplinary artist team and producers whose work traverses electronic sound, performance, and visual art. Known for a distinctive blend of rhythmic experimentation and poetic abstraction, Mye_Taai explores the emotional residue of modern life — where displacement, technology, and identity blur into a shared language of sound. Each release acts as both a personal reflection and a social mirror, combining intimacy with defiance. Empowered by stories, told through grim basement rave club tunes with bits of their own. Join the queue of the “Rave Club For Two”: and try to get in there. It’s you, me or more and have a right laugh together or go home.

Sophia Blyden is a poet and programmer who studied Modern Dutch Literature in Leiden. In her prose and poetry, she explores themes such as loneliness, power dynamics, and the boundary between fact and fiction. She also draws inspiration from fairy tales, myths, and pop culture.

Her debut collection Dobberen was published in September by Uitgeverij Querido.