Marres is open later every Friday evening until 8PM, with a special program and free admission. Bring your friends, family, or date along for a cultural start to your night out.
Porous Grounds, Sacred Codes
Wander through the exhibition Porous Grounds, Sacred Codes or join one of the multilingual guided tours, film screenings in collaboration with Lumière, storytelling evenings, workshops on West African traditions, and music sessions together with DAR Cultural Agency. Central themes include heritage, cultural identity, migration, and sensory experience.
Below you’ll find the full program!
Open Call: Marres Friday Night Program
Marres invites makers to program our Friday evenings! We’re offering you a space in which to create your own event, such as a workshop, performance, lecture, presentation, film screening, or anything else you can think of.
For the current exhibition Porous Grounds, Sacred Codes, the program has already been fully scheduled. In the summer, we plan to create a public program around the Limburg Biënnale, alongside the Marres Garden Program. In the fall, textiles, handicraft, and collaboration will take center stage in the exhibition by Celina Eceiza.
Porous Grounds, Sacred Codes
Spring Program Calendar
April 2026
Workshop Don’t Touch My Hair — Assimilation kit (DIY)
by DAVID de prins and rahman QUL
3 April 2026
What is the norm? And how do we, consciously or unconsciously, move toward those ideals?
In the project Don’t Touch My Hair, artist DAVID de prins, together with his fashion label DAVID le roi, explores how Western beauty standards continue to shape African and Afro-Caribbean culture, and how these ideals influence the way we see ourselves, present ourselves, and adapt.
During this interactive workshop, participants will work with a so-called “assimilation kit” — a term coined by poet and language terrorist rahman QUL. The kit serves as an artistic and reflective tool that invites participants to pause and consider the concepts of assimilation and integration. What does it really mean to adapt? When does adaptation feel like a choice, and when does it become a necessity? And what happens to your cultural identity when you move within dominant norms?
DAVID de prins and rahman QUL guide you into a world where the margin becomes the norm.
DAVID le roi is a clothing brand by designer and artist DAVID de prins. Within the label, fashion and art are used to unravel experiences of displacement and to challenge the ways power structures continue to shape individuals and communities. He is currently working on Don’t Touch My Hair, a research project supported by the Fonds ZOZ.
rahman QUL, the pseudonym of Roman Ansari, is a poet, thinker, and visionary. Known as “the Netherlands’ most notorious language terrorist,” he appropriates language, uses it in unconventional ways, and disrupts its structures. He is currently working on The Voice of the Unheard, a poetic research project supported by the Fonds ZOZ.
Free entrance!
Date:
Friday, 3 April, 2026
Time:
Doors open from 5PM, program starts at 5:30PM.
End 7:30, Marres closes at 8PM.
You’re welcome to visit the exhibition Porous Grounds, Sacred Codes the whole day:12-8PM (free admission from 5PM)
Location:
Marres, Maastricht
The workshop will be held in Dutch and English. As a visitor, you are welcome to join at any time!
If the event is sold out, you can register for the waiting list via reserveringen@marres.org
Photo: Gert Jan van Rooij
Photo: Het Derde Oog
Museum Night Maastricht
10 April 2026
Every year, Marres will take part in Museumnacht with a diverse program.
Porous Grounds, Sacred Codes
Discover Porous Grounds, Sacred Codes, a large-scale exhibition exploring collectivity, diaspora, and cultural identity. Seven artists with roots in West Africa: Yacine Tilala Fall, Selly Raby Kane, Maguette Dieng, Ican Ramageli, Hamedine Kane, Eva Diallo, and Babacar Traoré ‘Doli’, present an immersive installation combining sculpture, sound, textiles, video, and performance. Curated by RAW Material Company (Dakar).
Operator Radio
In collaboration with DAR Cultural Agency, several DJs present musical interpretations of the exhibition Porous Grounds, Sacred Codes. Expect danceable sets featuring West African sounds and Afro house. The evening will be live streamed by Operator Radio.
Extended
Extended, the youth collective of Marres and the Jan van Eyck Academy, hosts workshops and speed tours through the exhibition.
Bar & bites
Enjoy Senegalese snacks and refreshing drinks at Kitchen and in Marres’ city garden.
Museum Night is not part of the free Friday evenings. Tickets are available via:
Henna Night Workshop
by Pansee Atta
17 April, 2026
This sensory, hands-on Henna Night Workshop introduces you to the history and practice of henna. Over the course of two hours, you will learn how to mix and apply henna using the provided materials, guided by an experienced instructor. You will receive practical tips on sourcing materials, insight into the science behind effective use, and explanations of the meaning and cultural context of different designs. There will be plenty of space for reflection, collaboration, and learning through practice. In addition to building skills and historical knowledge, this workshop also offers a place for connection, community-building, and contemplation.
The henna plant (mehndi) is native to Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, and has been used for thousands of years as an artistic medium for ritual and celebratory body adornment. For many communities in the Global South, henna holds deep cultural significance, yet within the diaspora, knowledge of its preparation and use is often less widely familiar.
Pansee Atta is an Egyptian-Canadian visual artist, curator, and researcher. Through both new and traditional media, her practice decolonizes archival representations of the “Middle East” and Egypt. She is an artist-researcher within the NWA-funded research project Pressing Matter, which investigates and reimagines the colonial histories of Dutch museum collections. She was also a research fellow at Inherit, a Käte Hamburger Kolleg at Humboldt University in Berlin, where transformations of heritage are studied. Her work has been exhibited in Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, and Egypt, and her research unpacks the ways in which the cultural heritage of ancient Egypt has been collected, valued, and interpreted.
Free entrance!
Date:
Friday, 17 April, 2026
Time:
Doors open from 5PM, program starts at 5:30PM.
End 7:30, Marres closes at 8PM.
You’re welcome to visit the exhibition Porous Grounds, Sacred Codes the whole day:12-8PM (free admission from 5PM)
Location:
Marres, Maastricht
If the event is sold out, you can register for the waiting list via reserveringen@marres.org
Creative Kite-making Workshop: Drifting With The Wind
by Rossy Liu
24 April, 2026
Drifting With The Wind is a creative kite-making workshop that uses the kite as both a powerful symbol and a playful medium to explore the layered experience of diaspora.
A kite is always in-between: rooted, yet unrooted, tethered to a place, but drifting somewhere else. Together, we’ll reflect on migration not as a story of where we come from, but as an ongoing, fluid process of where we are right now—and the uncertainties, possibilities, and transformations that come with it.
In this workshop, you’ll create your own kite using materials you bring or make yourself. Your kite becomes more than an object: it becomes a personal expression of movement, belonging, and the ever-changing journey of defining home.
And if the weather is on our side, we’ll head outside to fly our kites together.
Rossy Liu is an Eindhoven-based artist who focuses on traditional printing and visual art. She has collaborated with cultural centres in Eindhoven to host bookbinding workshops, combining riso print and relief printing. Recently, she has expanded her practice to explore kite as a new paper-related medium, drawing inspiration from the symbolism of kites to explore themes of migration and identity.
Free entrance!
Date:
Friday, 24 April, 2026
Time:
Doors open from 5PM, program starts at 5:30PM.
End 7:30, Marres closes at 8PM.
You’re welcome to visit the exhibition Porous Grounds, Sacred Codes the whole day:12-8PM (free admission from 5PM)
Location:
Marres, Maastricht
If the event is sold out, you can register for the waiting list via reserveringen@marres.org
Porous Grounds, Sacred Codes
Spring Program Calendar
May 2026
Porous Grounds, Sacred Codes
1 May 2026
Visit the exhibition Porous Grounds, Sacred Codes between 5—8PM
Free entrance!
Date:
Friday, 1 May, 2026
Time:
Marres is open from 12—8PM
Free entrance from 5PM. No need for a ticket!
Location:
Marres, Maastricht
Porous Grounds, Sacred Codes multilingual guided tours
8 May, 2026
Join a guided tour of the exhibition Porous Grounds, Sacred Codes in Dutch, English, or the Maastricht dialect.
Free entrance!
Date:
Friday, 8 May, 2026
Time:
Doors open from 5PM, program starts at 5:30PM
Location:
Marres, Maastricht
Film screening + lecture-performance As Far As We Imagine
by Raouf Moussa
15 May, 2026
During this evening, we invite you to a film screening and lecture performance by artist and filmmaker Raouf Moussa. In an intimate setting, visitors will move between watching, listening, and reflecting together.
The evening begins with a screening of Moussa’s essayistic film As Far As We Imagine (30 min). The film starts from a personal relationship with Maastricht, the border, and growing between two countries. From this experience, a broader search unfolds into how images—such as maps, digital simulations, and painterly perspectives—shape our way of looking at land, distance, and ‘belonging’.
The film is followed by a lecture performance, not a classic Q&A, but a second register in which Moussa opens up his artistic practice to the audience. Drawing on personal wanderings, he reflects on themes such as maps as instruments of power and proximity, diaspora and the sense of belonging, and art and filmmaking as relational acts.
Raouf Moussa is an artist and filmmaker, born and raised in Maastricht with a Dutch-Tunisian background. In his practice, Moussa combines film, essay, and performance to reflect on how images, from maps to digital simulations, shape our relationship to land, space, and identity. His essayistic film As Far As We Imagine received the VAF Wildcard for Best Experimental Film from a Flemish film school in 2025 and the Horlait-Dapsens Prize at KASK Ghent. In addition to his individual practice, Moussa is a member of Atelier OFFoff, a collective within Art Cinema OFFoff. Within this collective, he focuses on building community around film.
Free entrance!
Date:
Friday, 15 May, 2026
Time:
Doors open from 5PM, program starts at 5:30PM
You’re welcome to visit the exhibition Porous Grounds, Sacred Codes the whole day:12-8PM (free admission from 5PM)
Location:
Marres, Maastricht
If the event is sold out, you can register for the waiting list via reserveringen@marres.org
Film Soundtrack to a Coup d’Etat
by Johan Grimonprez
17 May, 2026
Join us for a unique movie night in collaboration with Lumière! Enjoy a special screening of the latest film by director Johan Grimonprez about the Cold War, Congo, and jazz music.
A compelling documentary by Belgian director Johan Grimonprez, the film intertwines jazz, Cold War geopolitics, and colonial history through the events surrounding the 1961 assassination of Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba. Featuring an intricate montage of archival footage, speeches, literature, and music, the film reveals how cultural diplomacy, particularly through tours by jazz musicians like Louis Armstrong, intersected with covert political maneuvering during the Congo Crisis. Rhythmic editing and a rich jazz soundtrack transform historical research into a cinematic “mixtape” that exposes how art, propaganda, and power became intertwined in the struggle for Congo’s independence.
Johan Grimonprez is a Belgian filmmaker and multimedia artist known for essayistic films that combine archival footage, documentary, and fiction to examine the relationship between media, politics, and global history. He gained international recognition with Dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y (1997), which explores airplane hijackings and television culture. His later films include Double Take (2009) and Shadow World (2016).
Free entrance!
Date:
Sunday, 17 May, 2026
Time:
to be announced
Location:
Lumière
Bassin 88, Maastricht
Partners / thanks to:
Partners: RAW Material Company and DAR Cultural Agency
Porous Grounds, Sacred Codes is generously supported by: Het Cultuurfonds, with special thanks to Margarethe Petronella Fonds, VSB Fonds, Elisabeth Strouven Fonds, Stichting Kanunnik Salden/Nieuwenhof, Stichting DOEN and Cultuurmakers Maastricht.
Marres receives structural support from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, the Province of Limburg, and the Municipality of Maastricht.
