Meervaart Expo
In our foyer, Meervaart presents several rotating exhibitions per year as part of Meervaart Expo, alongside the permanent exhibition Meervaart in sight. We provide a platform for visual artists, photographers and illustrators whose work connects with themes that resonate in our theater program. The exhibitions offer visual depth to current topics and create space for new voices, perspectives and stories, often with a link to our city and its residents.
Expo Meervaart in sight
In the heart of our foyer, around the stairs, we present our permanent exhibition 'Meervaart in sight'.
Meervaart is more than a theater. It is a place where learning, making and presenting reinforce each other. Where performances, local art and artistic-social projects together get a platform. Here the most diverse communities, ages and art forms can meet and collaborate. It is the place that connects makers and companies. We are like a harbor from which you depart and return with new knowledge and values. In the exhibition we showcase the present, past and future of Meervaart. In permanent and changing installations we provide insight into our story: what we are, who we were and how we want to become.
COMING SOON
On view from April 21 through May 26, '26:
Meervaart Studio Foto Lab x Foam: 'Public Intimacy' #2
From April 21 through May 26, part of the photo exhibition 'Public Intimacy' will be on display in the foyer of Meervaart. The exhibition showcases work by young photographers from the Meervaart Studio Foto Lab in collaboration with photographer Hanane El Ouardani.
The photographers explored personal themes that resonate with them, from intimacy and distance to relationships with their bodies, memories, and the ways we present ourselves. The result is intimate, personal stories and images where the personal and public meet.
The exhibition runs from April 21 through May 26, 2026 and can be viewed during performances. Would you prefer to visit the exhibition outside of performance times? Please contact our box office at [email protected] to make an appointment.
For more information about the Foto Lab, click here!
The exhibitions below have now taken place and we look back with pride on these inspiring and successful exhibitions.
'The New Meervaart: a new theater for Nieuw-West'
In this exhibition The New Meervaart: a new theater for Nieuw-West, young people from Amsterdam and the surrounding area presented their vision for the new Meervaart.
For this educational project by the Van Eesteren Museum in collaboration with Meervaart, more than 250 students from six Amsterdam schools — Metis Montessori Lyceum, Keizer Karel College, Damstede Lyceum, Ir. Lely Lyceum, Kaj Munk College and Caland Lyceum — developed designs for a future building in which they could see themselves reflected.
The students were given the assignment: design a new theater for Meervaart that you would also like to visit yourself. In this exhibition we showcase a range of their original, creative and surprising designs for the future theater of Nieuw-West.
Visitors were invited to be surprised and inspired by these striking designs, which were previously on display at the Van Eesteren Museum.
Would you like to learn more about the new Meervaart? Read more here.
The exhibition has since taken place and is no longer on display at Meervaart.
SiMSALABiMS
Meervaart Expo presented SiMSALABiMS, an exhibition by illustrator George Adegite. From October 14 through December 18, 2025, the exhibition was on view in the foyer next to the Blauwe Zaal. Visitors discovered the tori's (stories) of among others Chanell, Rebecca, Georgy, Godwin and Danny – personal stories from Amsterdam Zuidoost, translated into powerful illustrations.
With SiMSALABiMS, George Adegite (1989) brought the Bijlmer to life. What started as a comic strip that he distributed monthly in the mailboxes of his apartment building grew into a series with a first season of twelve episodes and became a recognized concept in the neighborhood. The exhibition offered a glimpse into this world of raw, authentic stories at the margins of the city.
The exhibition has now taken place and is no longer on view at Meervaart.
Her (s)tories
At the end of 2025, Meervaart presented the exhibition 'Her (s)tories' in collaboration with Stichting Talk-Theater XL and the Amsterdam Ambassadors. The exhibition was part of the eponymous theatrical production by writer and performer Shantie Singh and formed a visual tribute to the women of Hindustani migration history – their strength, struggle, silence and voice.
The exhibition complemented the production Her (s)tories, in which forgotten voices of foremothers – pioneers, fighters and feminists – were brought back to life by today's writers, performers and poets. The exhibition provided deeper insight into these stories and created space for an underrepresented chapter in Dutch history.
The exhibition has since taken place and is no longer on view at Meervaart.
Four Nieuw-West
From May 1 to July 13, 2025, the photo exhibition 'Four Nieuw-West' was on display at Meervaart. The exhibition was a tribute to the vibrancy and diversity of the district and showcased portraits of local entrepreneurs who together formed the beating heart of Nieuw-West. Local artists captured them in the neighborhoods where they worked and lived, offering a glimpse into the communities that gave the district its character.
Meervaart presented a selection from a previous exhibition, initiated by District Nieuw-West, in which more than a hundred entrepreneurs were portrayed by seven photographers from the Nieuwe Makers Nieuw-West network: JonneLucia, Noortje Dalhuijsen, Hlalia Masrati, Jaap Kroon, Olivier Tuinier, Teemu Kekkonen, and William Lounsbury. Their work had previously been displayed on various squares and in shopping areas throughout Nieuw-West.
In the foyer of Meervaart, 18 striking portraits were exhibited. On Wednesday, May 7, the official opening took place, conducted by Yassine Boussaid (director of Meervaart) and Sandra Doevendans (district councilor Amsterdam Nieuw-West). The opening was part of the launch of the festival Lieve Stad, 750 at Meervaart.
The exhibition has since taken place and is no longer on view at Meervaart.