Alluminous

FESTIVAL

Artistic director and curator of Alluminous, a festival dedicated to innovative theatrical forms and artistic methodologies in the genre of light art in the city of Almere. Alluminous focuses on artworks commissioned to collaborating duos of theatre professionals and visual artist, as new concepts for the artistic realm of light art, presented along a five kilometer route around Almere’s Weerwater lake.  

2027 festival sixth edition preparation in progress.

DESIGN:
Thansk

2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, 2026, 2027

Alluminous is an annual light art festival built around large-scale, site-specific commissions, presented in Octovber in the city of Almere. For ten days each autumn, a free walking route around Almere’s Weerwater lake presents new work by national and international artists, alongside co-productions with local theatres, museums and educational institutions. The most recent edition in 2026 welcomed over 75,000 visitors. The city itself is the curatorial brief. Almere has no historic heritage to lean on. It was reclaimed from the sea barely fifty years ago, and this young urban environment keeps reinventing itself, convinced that anything can succeed here in a new form. Almere is often described as the unconventional “Atlantis” of the Netherlands, a metropolis in the making, and it gives artists a rare invitation to work with ambition and daring towards experimentation. Every commission starts from a specific site along the route. The planned new-town landscape is not treated as a neutral backdrop. Artists are invited to embrace its unconventional beauty and respond with bold, absurdist interventions that draw on Pop Art and theatrical experiment. The result is not light design as decoration. It is light art as a scenographic statement. Each work is conceived as an experience: a scene the visitor enters, or an object that opens up a larger story to discover. By bringing together visual art, visitor experienced as carefully crafted dramaturgy, technology and interaction, Alluminous is a platform where commissioned work changes how audiences see the city. It is also a testing ground where artists can realise ambitious ideas at the scale of a city.

A longstanding core value of Alluminous and its artistic relevance is the commissioning of new artworks to artists and designer that have a first step experience of creating light art, the unusual suspects of light art now becoming an odd space that flips the logical perspectives and expectations of this today so popular genre as much as possible. 

To make this space of commissioning new artworks maximally appealing for artistic experimentation, Alluminous often collaborates with cultural partners in the city (art spaces, theatre companies, orchestras) to co-commission artists from a manifold of artistic backgrounds, often working in (for the festival commission) newly assembled artistic duo’s for collaboration: visual artists, designers, scenographers, light designers, technologists, dramaturgists, actors, musicians, composers, fashion designers, art educators, and so on have found in working on commissions for Allumious unexpected and fruitfull collaborative partnerships. 

2027 festival sixth edition preparation in progress.

FEATURED ARTISTS:
2026 - Simon Wald-Lasowski & Tim Vermeulen/Suburbia, Gjorgji Despodov, Gijs van Bon, PITAYA, Rutger Buiter/Vis à Vis, Dirk Lentz & composer Aart Strootman/Black Pencil, Robin Beekman, Estranged Studio/Jij bent M., Dennis van Tilburg.
2025 - Leonard van Munster/Suburbia, Sajoscha Talirz & Jette Vogel/Vis à Vis, Jaap van den Elzen & Black Pencil (composer Anthony Fiumara), Ruben Raven, Max de Waard, Robin Beekman, Frouke ten Velden/Jij bent M., Mannie Krak/BonteHond, Amanda Parer.
2024 - Louise te Poele & Tim Vermeulen/Suburbia, Noortje van den Eijnde & Jos Agasi/Vis à Vis, Touki Delphine & Enric Monfort/Black Pencil, Pieternel Bollmann & Vasileios Apostolatos/BonteHond, Clinton Kabena, Suze van Miltenburg & Stieneke Oeverbeek, Atelier Haute Cuisine, WERC Collective, Jop Vissers Vorstenbosch, Folkert de Jong.
2023 - Theun Mosk/Gouden Haas & Oceanic, Maaike Fransen & Juul Dekker/Vis à Vis, MAISON the FAUX & Linda Bosch/Suburbia, Zindzi Witte & Serano Pinas/Bontehond, Enric Monfort/Black Pencil & Jurjen Alkema, Vendel & de Wolf, UXU studio, Iwan Smit.
2022 - Meeus van Dis & Neal Groot/Suburbia, Simon Wald-Lasowski & Hendrik Walther/Ulrike Quade Company, Heleen Blanken & Marieke Nooren/Gouden Haas, Daphne Karstens/BonteHond, Gali May Lucas, Mads Vega, Clay Dorse Odom, Nicole Banowetz.



Aura Farming (2026), Simon Wald-Lasowski & Tim Vermeulen/Suburbia - (commissioned artwork for festival edition 2026)


Turbine Songs (2026), Dennis van Tilburg - (commissioned artwork for festival edition 2026)


Oll Korrect (2026), Rutger Buiter/Vis à Vis - (commissioned artwork for festival edition 2026)


Save Our Souls (2023), Maaike Fransen & Juul Dekker/Vis à Vis - (commissioned artwork for festival edition 2023)


Tekheads (2025), Max de Waard - (commissioned artwork for festival edition 2025)


ABAAMD (2024), Clinton Kabena - (commissioned artwork for festival edition 2024)


Motus Vitae (2024), Louise te Poele & Tim Vermeulen/Suburbia - (commissioned artwork for festival edition 2024)


RELAY Stonehenge (2024), Touki Delphine & Black Pencil - (commissioned collaboration for festival edition 2024)


Hnterland (2022), Heleen Blanken & Marieke Nooren/Gouden Haas - (commissioned artwork for festival edition 2022)


Moly Mountain (2023), MAISON the FAUX & Linda Bosch/Suburbia - (commissioned artwork for festival edition 2023)


Elysion (2025), Ruben Raven - (commissioned artwork for festival edition 2025)


Holy Plankton (2022), Simon Wald-Lasowski & Hendrik Walther/Ulrike Quade Company - (commissioned artwork for festival edition 2022)


Flevo Lacus/Happy Days (2022), Meeus van Dis & Neal Groot/Suburbia - (commissioned artwork for festival edition 2022)


Point Nemo (2023), Theun Mosk & Oceanic/Gouden Haas - (commissioned artwork for festival edition 2023)