HAPPENING 23–26 SEP '26 | Rotterdam becomes one large classroom from Wednesday 23 to Saturday 26 September during the third edition of Nieuwe Instituut’s After Summer School. Instead of gathering everyone inside one institution, the programme sends participants across the city for lessons, walks, talks and workshops in gardens, gyms, libraries, neighbourhood spaces, bunkers, streets and even on an island.
Image: Afrikaanderwijk Coöperatie leads a session during After Summer School 2025. Photo: Sarah Huiskamp.
The idea is to treat knowledge already present in Rotterdam as something worth learning from. Artists, researchers, community organisations, activists and other local experts share methods that range from listening and archiving to movement, design, collective decision-making and exploring the city itself. Individual classes and workshops cost €7.50, allowing you to build your own programme rather than signing up for all four days.
Rotterdam becomes the campus
Nieuwe Instituut describes the After Summer School as a way of looking at Rotterdam as a knowledge city. That means moving beyond universities and museums and recognising the expertise held by neighbourhood organisations, independent initiatives, makers and communities.
The participating organisations reflect that approach. This year’s programme includes Afrikaanderwijk Coöperatie, Buitenplaats Brienenoord, Independent School for the City, Bibliotheek Rotterdam, Pauluskerk, Queer Gym, OMI Rotterdam, Verhalenhuis Belvédère, Vers Beton, WARM Rotterdam, One Planet Port and several others. Philosopher Rosi Braidotti is also among the contributors.
The locations are just as varied. Depending on the class you choose, you might end up in a community centre, an allotment garden, a bunker, a studio, a gym or walking through Rotterdam itself.
That format is part of the point. The city is not simply being discussed from a classroom. Rotterdam becomes the material you work with, whether the subject is homelessness, the port, public space, poverty, colonial history, climate change or the ways people organise themselves.
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Four days of very different lessons
The programme begins on Wednesday 23 September with contributions from Rosi Braidotti, Afrikaanderwijk Coöperatie, Janilda Bartolomeu, Pauluskerk and Verhalenhuis Belvédère. Braidotti gives an English-language lecture exploring how a culture of peace can be built in a period of polarisation and constant crisis, while a Pauluskerk city walk looks at homelessness in Rotterdam through the experiences of people who have lived it themselves.
Thursday gets even more spatial. In-Depth-Space uses Rotterdam’s port as the starting point for an English-language workshop on ‘oceanic thinking’, while OMI takes participants inside a Rotterdam bomb shelter to examine how architecture responds to fear and crisis. Varia runs an English role-playing workshop about collective decision-making, and Buitenplaats Brienenoord invites participants to map the ecosystem of Brienenoord island.
On Friday 25 September, the programme moves between philosophy, sound, sustainability, urban ownership and the body. Independent School for the City looks at how cities are rebuilt after war or disaster, while One Planet Port explores how the Port of Rotterdam could operate within planetary boundaries. Sound Office leads an English-language listening workshop around Rotterdam’s noise cameras, and Queer Gym ends the day with a boxing session focused on boundaries, strength and breaking sporting norms.
The final day includes an English-language anti-colonial walk through Rotterdam with WORKNOT! and COOPIA, a visit to the experimental Human-Powered House, workshops at Buitenplaats Brienenoord and Verhalenhuis Belvédère, and an unusual session with artist Islam Shabana and (A)WAKE in which participants build technological talismans using chips, programming and ideas drawn from older Arabic talismanic traditions.
Philosopher Rosi Braidotti during After Summer School 2025. Photo: Sarah Huiskamp.
Plenty to join in English
The After Summer School is not an English-only event, but international Rotterdam residents should find considerably more to choose from than the Dutch name and local focus might suggest.
Several sessions are completely in English, while others are bilingual. On Wednesday, Braidotti’s lecture is in English. Thursday includes English sessions from In-Depth-Space, Varia and OMI. Friday has English contributions from Independent School for the City, One Planet Port, Loom and Sound Office, while Saturday’s anti-colonial walk and technological talisman workshop are also in English.
Other classes are Dutch-only, so it is worth checking before booking. Nieuwe Instituut clearly states the language alongside every individual session on the programme pages.
One Planet Port’s Friday session is particularly accessible in this respect: it is held in English with Dutch whisper translation available. Several other workshops are listed as English/Dutch, allowing the language to adapt to the group.
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A curriculum built from the city
The After Summer School forms part of Nieuwe Instituut’s Nieuwe Academie and its Curriculum for Change, developed in collaboration with philosopher Rosi Braidotti.
The underlying idea is that Rotterdam contains far more knowledge than is normally visible in formal education. Everyday experience, community knowledge, minority perspectives and embodied knowledge can all contribute to understanding complex social, technological and ecological questions.
This year’s edition also coincides with Peace Week, organised nationally by PAX. Themes including empathy, imagination, listening, resistance and resilience therefore run throughout parts of the programme, connecting questions about the city with the broader issue of how people live together during a period of political and social tension.
That makes the After Summer School less about collecting neat answers and more about trying different ways of understanding Rotterdam. You can learn from an architect in one session and from someone with lived experience of homelessness in the next.
Tickets and programme
After Summer School runs from Wednesday 23 to Saturday 26 September 2026. You do not need to register for the entire programme: each class or workshop can be booked separately for €7.50.
The full programme, daily schedules, languages and locations are available at:
https://nieuweinstituut.nl/projects/de-nieuwe-academie/after-summer-school-2026/
Tickets can also be booked through the programme page. Some sessions have limited capacity, so booking ahead is sensible if there is a particular class you want to attend.
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How to get there
There is no single After Summer School venue. Classes take place across Rotterdam, and every booking specifies its own meeting point or location. Check the individual session page before setting off.
Nieuwe Instituut coordinates the programme from Museumpark and is itself easy to reach from Eendrachtsplein metro station, Rotterdam Centraal and the city centre.
