Marres Garden Festival 2026

Stadstuin

De tuin van Marres is met ca. 1000 mde grootste openbare stadstuin van Maastricht. Op 12 en 13 juni nodigt Marres je uit om workshops te volgen over al het moois dat dit stukje verborgen natuur te bieden heeft.

Moss
Nature-conscious workshop and sensory tent

by Anneke Wubbolts

Free entrance

Discover the magic of moss! As appreciation for nature wanes, so does the willingness to take climate action; the Moss project explores this through a sensory installation of moss that promotes tranquility, mindfulness, and respect for nature, followed by a workshop in which participants use natural, biodegradable materials to create temporary artworks that return to the earth, thereby strengthening the relationship between humans and nature.

While studying visual communication in Maastricht, Anneke Wubbolts learned to look at art, creators, and the world around her in a new way. After graduating, she founded her own company, studio KEANS. In her work, she combines various media and techniques to make social themes accessible and stimulate dialogue. Through this, she aims to spark awareness and forge new connections.

Date:

Friday, 12 June, 2026

Project Moss will also be on display on June 13!

Time:

5:30—8PM

Entrance:

Free

Language:

Dutch

Group size:

20 persons

Location:

Marres city garden
Capucijnenstraat 98, Maastricht
Please check in at the front desk first!

Free tickets
Marres’ garden around 1950

Hidden Stories of the Garden
Guided tour on history and green heritage

by Angelina Valleau

Discover the hidden layers of Marres’s urban garden and join us in exploring its history, value, and future, gaining practical knowledge and insights along the way.

Angelina Valleau (1971) is an expert in built heritage and its sustainability, with a growing specialization in green heritage: an often-overlooked aspect of historic preservation. Drawing on her “Green Heritage” program at Utrecht University of Applied Sciences, she focuses on analyzing, evaluating, and future-proofing historic gardens and landscapes.

Date:

Saturday, 13 June, 2026

Time:

10—11PM

Entrance:

Day pass for Saturday: €15
This includes:
– Guided tour by Angelina Valleau
– Workshop (including lunch) by Wilgenvrouwen
– Performance by Plantelectra Orchestra

Language:

Dutch

Group size:

20 persons

Location:

Marres city garden
Capucijnenstraat 98, Maastricht
Please check in at the front desk first!

Day pass for Saturday, 13 June, 2026
Wilgenvrouwen garden in Sibbe

The Willow Women Project (Wilgenvrouwen)
Alchemical & Cyclical Garden workshop, including a group lunch

by Pleun Moons and Beatrice Pittman

Explore how a garden can function as a living workplace, where the relationship between art, spirituality, and natural cycles is brought to life through artistic inquiry, daily care, and self-sustaining practices.
At lunchtime, we’ll enjoy a plant-based meal together.

Pleun Moons draws inspiration from her collaboration with her garden, which centers on the relationship between humans and the earth. Her practice combines physical labor with more contemplative methods, resulting in a variety of forms such as paintings, dinners, and harvest festivals. She works cyclically: what grows is processed and returns as the foundation for new work. In this way, she develops a sustainable, ever-evolving practice.

Beatrice Pittman sees the bringing together of people, objects, and rituals as a form of “weaving.” This gives rise to interactive situations in which people and their surroundings enter into dialogue with one another. Her work is exploratory and experiential, with a focus on physicality and encounter. She draws on ancient crafts and rituals and works as a spaceholder: she creates and maintains a setting in which exchange and shared experience take center stage.

Date:

Saturday, 13 June, 2026

Time:

11—3:30PM

Entree:

Day pass for Saturday: €15
This includes:
– Guided tour by Angelina Valleau
– Workshop (including lunch) by Wilgenvrouwen
– Performance by Plantelectra Orchestra

Language:

Dutch

Group size

20 persons

Location:

Marres city garden
Capucijnenstraat 98, Maastricht
Please check in at the front desk first!

Day pass for Saturday, 13 June, 2026
Julia van de Kar
Ananya Samyt

Performance Plantelectra Orchestra / in roots connected

by Julia van de Kar and Ananya Samyt

Experience an intimate performance in which plants use technology to produce sound, effectively becoming musicians themselves. In a small, immersive setting, a performer moves among the plants and interacts with them, while their rhythms and vibrations become audible to the audience. Get closer to nature, which takes center stage here as a living presence.

Julia van de Kar is a theater artist, performer, and educator who graduated from the Maastricht Academy of Performing Arts. She works intuitively and physically, focusing on voice and movement as universal forms of communication. Her performances exist in the space between the visible and the hidden, creating opportunities for connection and reflection. She also develops participatory workshops and works as a museum educator.

Ananya Samyt is a performer and sound artist who works at the intersection of nature and technology. Using modular synthesizers and biosensors, she translates electrical signals from plants into sound, with the plants acting as active creators. Her work often emerges in collaboration with musicians and invites a new way of listening, where nature and electronics converge.

Date:

Saturday, 13 June, 2026

Tijd:

3:30—5PM

Entrance:

Day pass for Saturday: €15
This includes:
– Guided tour by Angelina Valleau
– Workshop (including lunch) by Wilgenvrouwen
– Performance by Plantelectra Orchestra

Language:

Dutch/English

Group size:

20 personen

Location:

Marres city garden
Capucijnenstraat 98, Maastricht
Please check in at the front desk first!

Day pass for Saturday, 13 June, 2026
Photo: Rob van Hoorn

Hans Engelbrecht 

Throughout the day, ecological gardener Hans van Engelbrecht will be on hand to answer a wide range of questions about the flora and fauna in the Marres garden, which he knows like the back of his hand.

Hans Engelbrecht is the owner of the company De Groene Stap. He skillfully weaves together cultural history, ecology, and the surrounding environment. This results in a connection between gardens and landscaped spaces where nature and natural processes take center stage. In Maastricht, his projects include the Marres city garden, the Sphinxpark, and the Garden of Mercy.

degroenestap.nl

Information

The workshops will take place regardless of the weather, so please dress appropriately!

Questions? Email receptie@marres.org

Partners / thanks to

Marres receives ongoing support from the Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science, the Province of Limburg, and the City of Maastricht.

Marres would also like to thank Hans Engelbrecht, the ecological gardener and designer of the city garden, our volunteer Thuur, and everything that grows and blooms in the garden.

Listening Letters: Family workshop (5+) with Maguette Dieng

Join us as we slow down and rediscover the world through the magic of sound. In this workshop, we explore playful activities that sharpen our senses and transform the way we experience everything: from the softest whisper of nature to the lively rhythms of our everyday lives.Together, we turn listening into a shared sense of wonder. Through creative play and imaginative exercises, we train our ears to notice the hidden beauty around us. As we truly listen to the world and to one another, we discover how much richer and more vibrant life can feel. An experience where curiosity, learning, and the joy of being together go hand in hand.

Maguette Dieng, whose work is featured in the exhibition Porous Grounds, Sacred Codes, is returning to Marres – during TEFAF week – for a number of workshops and a very special listening session.

Maguette Dieng (Barcelona, 1988) is a DJ, producer, educator, music programmer and dedicated explorer of music and sound. In her personal practice, she attempts to translate the emotions and experiences of everyday life into sound in a poetic, sensitive and critical way. 

Date:

Wednesday, 11 March, 2026

Time:

1PM—2:30PM

Location:

Marres, Maastricht

Language:

English

Tickets Listening letters workshop (free entrance)
Please reserve one ticket per person or child. (For example: A family of four = also four tickets.) Limited capacity!
More about Porous Grounds, Sacred Codes Listening Session Spiritual Sonic Systems

Extended: Collectivity

Are you up for something different on Saturdays? EXTENDED, the youth collective of Marres and the Jan van Eyck Academie, is kicking off a new edition on October 25 — and you can join in!

Together with other young people, you’ll get to work directly with artists, dive into their creative worlds, and discover what really goes on behind the scenes of a cultural institution. Each week you’ll explore themes like migration, diaspora, and community (linked to the exhibition Porous Grounds, Sacred Codes at Marres), while trying out workshops, visiting exhibitions, and building towards your very own project that will be shown during Museumnacht 2026.

Oh, and yes — you’ll also earn some money while doing it. Every Saturday from 12:00 to 14:00, you’ll be part of a group that’s curious, creative, and ready to experiment.

Sound like your thing? Sign up before 20 October 2025 — we’d love to have you on board!

Check the registration form

Kinderdag Festival Celebrate YOU!

The Children’s Museum Directors Stanske, Mohammad, Sophie and Emre
Photo: Hannah Lipowsky

SOLD OUT!

The Children’s Day Festival is OSCAM’s annual kids’ celebration, all about creativity and self-expression. This year, three locations are participating: Marres in Maastricht, HipHopHuis in Rotterdam, and OSCAM in Amsterdam.

During the festival, children have the freedom to follow their own creative path. They can take part in a wide range of workshops and activities, such as a hip-hop dance workshop by Oxygen, storytime with books from Centre Céramique, crocheting with Maasstitch, crafts, building forts, comic drawing, a poetry workshop, and of course, tasty snacks and drinks!

The Children’s Day Festival is also co-organized by the Children’s Museum directors, who, together with a youth coach, help design and run parts of the program. This gives children a unique opportunity to get involved in the museum world, take the lead, and have a special experience shaping an art festival.

Date:

Sunday 7 December 2025

Time:

12:00—16:00

Location:

Marres
Capucijnenstraat 98, Maastricht 

Free entrance


Children’s Day is specially for kids. Parents are welcome, but unfortunately cannot take part in the workshops. Fewer adults = more space and more fun for the kids!

Photo-overview

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Photo: Rob van Hoorn
Photo: Rob van Hoorn
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Photo: Rob van Hoorn
Photo: Rob van Hoorn
Photo: Rob van Hoorn
Photo: Rob van Hoorn
Photo: Rob van Hoorn
Photo: Rob van Hoorn
Photo: Rob van Hoorn

Partners / Thanks:

Partners: OSCAM, Amsterdam and HipHopHuis, Rotterdam

Thanks you to Centre Céramique, Maasstitch, Oxygen Academy of Dance, Lee Janssen, Lola Coenders

Marres & OSCAM are looking for Children’s Museum Directors

Artwork courtesy of OSCAM and Kalkidan Hoex

Would you like to be a Children’s Museum Director?

Are you between 9 and 14 years old and bursting with creative ideas? Do you want to share your thoughts, take action, and make a difference in the world of art and culture?

For the Kinderdag Festival on December 7, 2025, Marres is looking for Children’s Museum Directors! As a young director, you’ll be an important part of our team. Together with other kids, you’ll take part in an inspiring program full of art, culture, creativity — and responsibility. For five Wednesday afternoons in a row, we’ll meet for an hour or so to prepare the Kinderdag Festival Celebrate YOU! Marres organizes this program together with OSCAM.

What will you do?

  • Contribute ideas for Marres’ education program
  • Work with other young directors on new ideas
  • Help organize the Kinderdag Festival: Celebrate YOU!
  • Take part in creative and inspiring workshops
  • Share your voice about what matters to you in art and culture

You can sign up until October 25, 2025.
Questions? Send an email to educatie@marres.org!

Registration form Want to know more about Kinderdag Festival?

Closing presentation Extended

Risoprint Workshop at the Jan van Eyck Academie

Extended invites you to the presentation of their final project on Saturday, June 21st.

Over the past few months, Extended has been working with the theme of dreams, which served as the inspiration for their final project on lullabies. During the final presentation, we invite you to share your own lullabies with us, so we can listen to them together. Maybe, in doing so, we can escape our nightmares.

Date: 21 June 2025
Time: 12—2PM
Location: Marres City Garden, Maastricht

The educational program Extended is a collaborative project by Marres and the Jan van Eyck Academie, in which young people work together for four months on a socially engaged art project.

Read more about the Extended youth program

National Outdoor Play Day

Photo: Rob van Hoorn

National Outdoor Play Day at Marres! 

On Wednesday, June 11, 2025, the whole country turns into one big playground — and Marres is joining in! Come play outside in our delightful city garden.

Make your own witch’s brew, smell fragrant flowers, taste fresh elderflower, and search for all the colors of the rainbow.

Let your senses be stimulated and your imagination run wild! Be sure to wear old clothes, because getting dirty is not just allowed — it’s a must!

Date: Wednesday, June 11, 2025
Time: 12:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Location: The city garden of Marres in Maastricht
The garden is free to enter

For parents, there’s the option to visit the Vultures & Fireflies exhibition, enjoy reading a book in the garden, or relax at Marres Kitchen.

Read more about the Marres city garden

Partners / Thanks to:

The National Outdoor Play Day is an initiative by Jantje Beton. Jantje Beton is the leading charity that, since 1968, has been working together with children to create more and better play spaces and increase opportunities for play.

Visit from Broeklandcollege

For the third time, Marres welcomed a 3rd-year VMBO-T class from Broeklandcollege in Hoensbroek, as part of a five-lesson program.

Earlier at school, the students listened to The Invisible Collection, learned about the work of artist Alejandro Galván, and started making a personal artwork with symbols about their cultural identity.

At Marres, they took it a step further: they got an interactive tour of the exhibition Vultures & Fireflies, imagined their alter ego with the help of a classmate, and helped create a large group mural.

Extended: Adventures in Slumberland

Extended started with the four-month art project Adventures in Slumberland on 15 March 2025 with a new group of members.

In this new workshop series, Extended takes young people on a creative journey of discovery. They’ll explore the magical, beautiful—and sometimes scary—world of dreams and nightmares. Dreams are more than just weird stories in your head. They let you imagine other worlds, escape the chaos of everyday life, and they can even help you come up with fresh ideas. What if you could use your imagination to actually change something?

In the spring of 2025, Extended dives deep into the world of dreams. These workshops are inspired by Mexican artist Alejandro Galván, whose exhibition Vultures & Fireflies creates a colorful dream world. His art blends stories from his neighborhood with myths, comics, and gaming culture—where fantasy and reality merge.

With the help of artists, a coach, and the facilities of Marres and the Jan van Eyck Academie, you’ll have the chance to create and shape your own dream world.

Read more about Extended Get to know more about Vultures & Fireflies by Alejandro Galván