Onze Ambassade Festival
03.09.2022 — 04.09.2022
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Onze Ambassade Festival #4

Artists
Pierre Bismuth, Brunnera, John Butcher, Beatrice Campell, Chris Corsano, Colloid, Comfort, Frits Dijcks, DJ Margarita, Dsrpturs, eerie_ear, Lucas Evers, Yannik Güldner, Raimundas Malašauskas, Roxane Métayer, Talita Otović, Asad Raza, Paul Robeson, Radio Hito, Katerina Sidorova, Max Syedtollan, Still House Plants, Niels van Ruiten, SuperRobber, Synaesthesis Ensemble en Tachycardie.

Tickets (5 euro)
https://OA_festival2022.eventbrite.nl

Festival
Saturday 03.09.2022 — 20:00 till 01:00 hrs
Sunday 04.09.2022 — 12:00 till 18:00 hrs

Location
West Den Haag in the former American Embassy, Lange Voorhout 102, The Hague

This year the fourth edition of the Onze Ambassade Festival will take place. We celebrate the opening of the cultural season again with a two-day festival. The program brings together different art forms and gives an up-to-date impression of the most contemporary art and culture. In the building designed by Marcel Breuer, originally used as a US embassy, you can spend a weekend immersing yourself in experimental music, exhibitions of international contemporary art, a historical presentation about a Black activist, a performance, a book presentation, and a debate about art and politics. These are interspersed with danceable music by DJs from Radio Tonka and the special international music program specially curated by Alex Andropoulos.

With this special cultural mix in the heart of the Museum Quarter in The Hague, we are shaping a cultural year full of challenges and new projects in an idiosyncratic way. With this, we want to stimulate and invite you to continue to follow West The Hague in the coming period.

On Saturday evening, a series of concerts will take place in the auditorium, during which Synaesthesis Ensemble kicks off with an atmospheric presentation of compositions from Lithuania. Arminas Bižys and Simonas Kaupinis will perform the work 'Taming the Air' for the first time in the Netherlands. The French artist Tachycardie brings virtuoso and very danceable percussion that, just like the band Still House Plants, has a hypnotic effect. At the same time, in the former office spaces in the diplomatic wing of the building, visitors can view Pierre Bismuth's exhibition and play the game 'Landjepik' in Katerina Sidorova's new installation. Her work points us to the run-up to the current political situation and the war that Putin has started. In the garage, the duo Comfort brings personal and raw music, with narrative lyrics. The DJs and artists in the Alphabetum make experimental electronic music accessible to a wide audience this evening. By improvising and using electrical codes manipulated on the spot, the music sounds fresh and distinctly different from mainstream music. SuperRobber will connect the various artists musically. Parallel Brunnera and then Talita Otović, in the auditorium, connect one danceable track and another without ever becoming predictable.

In addition to the continuous music program, the exhibitions can also be visited on Sundays. We start with two substantive presentations. The debate in the context of the Bottleneck exhibition is preceded by a performance by Katerina Sidorova and Niels van Ruiten. A book about makers and their practice in the creative sector will be launched in the Alphabetum. At 2 pm, the internationally renowned curator Raimundas Malašauskas will engage in a light-hearted conversation with artists Asad Raza and Pierre Bismuth. This talk show will be regularly interrupted by musical interventions. The French Roxane Métayer is described as a drone violinist who makes beautiful melodic sound sculptures. John Butcher combines a jazzy saxophone sound with small experiments and creates a unique sound. Max Syedtollan and Chris Corsano each provide a narrative solo presentation with a very different character, one with words, the other through improvisation on the drum. Radio Hito from Brussels closes the day in style with dreamy, poppy songs.