WORM: Cultural Statement

WORM values spirit, élan, and joie de vivre. WORM is sometimes perceieved as difficult, and even pretentious, but we’re never afraid to fall on our faces.

Where do we fit in the cultural world?

WORM embraces multidisciplinary art and experimentation – right in the heart of Rotterdam. We operate by day and night, with a network that is local, national and international. We look to host presentations and facilitate productions by curious, forward-thinking makers, who experiment with new sounds, new ideas, new ways to perform – to move / to question / to exchange / to live. We are pleasure activists. 

“WORM, ROFFA, AND THE WORLD”: In Rotterdam, WORM works closely with neighbouring centres such as V2_, Kunstinstitute Melly and Showroom MaMa. We operate at street level in the city: our #Wunderbar hosts low-threshold community programming and ‘Filmtuin’, our summer open–air cinema series in the city centre’s Eendrachtsstuin, is curated together with the neighbourhood. Our programming takes shape from our “permanent dialogue” with Rotterdam: for example, the Social Reproductive Feminism film series with Erasmus University; the Lens-Based graduation show from the Piet Zwart Institute; the Visa Reveal Party and the Salon of Queer Indoctrination series by artists Maja Simisic and Elio Troullakis, respectively.

WORM connects nationally and internationally, using inhouse art-production. Our artist-run film lab, dedicated to DIY analogue practice, Filmwerkplaats, runs workshops and projects throughout Europe and our inhouse radio station, Radio WORM, works with and broadcasts from partners such as Rewire Festival (NL), Ultima Festival (NO) and Radophrenia (SCO). We host and dive into performative collaborations, such as that between Lo Def Film Factory (Cape Town, SA) and Roxette Capriles and Amber Vineyard (Rotterdam): a physical and video-based research on Algorithmic Colonialism. Well-established cultural festivals in Rotterdam, such as MoMo, IFFR, O. Festival, Left of the Dial, North Sea Round Town, and Festival Downtown partner with WORM as a venue, and bring “glocal” names to play here. We also rent out our spaces to like-minded parties, such as Digital Playground or The Writer’s Guide to the Galaxy.

The film below is made by WORM PR intern, Eliška Čubova, about her experiences working here, January to June, 2026. Čubova: “This film was made with the intention of making WORM feel like a place of its own, with an atmosphere that feels different from anywhere else.” (Watch out for the “restful beginning”! )

How do we value and see talent?

Helping new cultural makers is our focus: We offer time, space, and opportunities to new makers through productions on one of our stages, such as shows, talks, and performances, residencies and workshops, and radio, music or film-making. WORM’s stages therefore act as learning spaces for future creators and curators. We have a long history of developing talent, from both inhouse and from related or new groups in the city and beyond. 

We guide makers from their first idea to their final presentation. We don’t hold their hand – we offer space for them to try, or explore; we question and connect as critical friends; we offer professional facilities and help – often tailor-made – with budget-development, funding writing, rehearsal space, prototype-testing, coaching, pre-production, and text-writing. In all of this WORM’s starting point is that of what the artist needs. 

WORM has documented many instances of talent development in our spaces over the years. These can be found in our history section https://worm.org/history/.

Summary (2025-2026)

Radio: In spring-summer 2026, Project XLR allows nine makers under thirty the chance to create a 10-episode radio series on Radio WORM. This is a three-month recurring project, running every six months. Radio WORM sends a call out for new makers twice a year: those selected get a chance to learn how to make their radio shows, in-studio. Over the last few years, Radio WORM has grown into a true community and civic resource, with radio makers such as Maria + Jeanne aka y.e.a.r.n., Laura Silva aka REDWOODS (Radio WORM guest-programmer 2025-26), Viana aka vixnde (Radio WORM guest-programmer 2025-26),  Davide Ghelli Santuliana, Anna Spasova, Gilbert van Drunen, Isul Kim + Viktoria Nikolova, the DVR collective, RESIDUE, and Collectief Wasem all creating and broadcasting unique content and insight: from live music, field recordings and found sounds, live poetry, Rotterdam-centric call-ins and cultural review shows. These makers’ shows can be heard on RADIO WORM.

Music and Sound Art: WORM is a renowned centre for improvised, off-grid and challenging music. Electric Umbrella and Studio CoOpe are regular improvisation nights that draw on WORM’s deep experience of improv, and the diverse communities around WORM Sound Studio and informal partners such as Batavierhuis. Young curators Matthias Carter (Hidden Behind Mist) and Jeroen de Jong (Faalfest) organise urgent, upcoming gigs around new forms of punk, noise, electro and wave.

Currently, we also facilitate curators for traditionally marginalised music forms; ones that often reach out to create new sonic hybrids. The following are medium to long-term projects: Avita Maheen curates কাল্পনিক রেখা (Kalponik Rekha): a sound and performance art platform focussed on South Asian artists. Christine Cornwell and Otto Rissanen curate Sounding Here: an avant-garde platform for young musicians where genres and sound-worlds converge. Nikos ten Hoedt brings ambient sound art and healing practice to WORM with the Pelagic Ambient series. Other WORM allies, such as Sarojini Lewis, intermittently host nights that draw on their personal (here: Indo-Caribbean) background. 

Performance: WORM sees performance as a fluid discipline and a creative and social glue that binds many aspects of our programme and activities together. Performance finds its way into our music programme, with the Pelagic Ambient series and the activities involving Tisa Herlec (RE#SISTER, TiSiTi, UBIK Mystery Sessions). Radio WORM’s 25 Hour Radio Relay (2025 and 2026 saw exercise bikes, communal singing, knitting and poetry as part of the broadcasts). The idea of nightlife is integral to WORM’s performance – as seen with January 2025’s Midnight at the Circus that kicked off WORM’s new iteration, Ultimate Playground, and midsummer 2025’s Play Day and Night extravaganza, which saw deejay sets, art from young makers, performance and spoken word play out in Slash Gallery. An edition is planned for 2026. Performance is used as a mirror to society in WORM: currently through Elio Troulakis’s series, The Salon of Queer Indoctrinations. Young makers are given space and critical development through programmes such as our ongoing work with the Amarte Fonds. Since March 2025, the Performance Art documentation work group RESIDUE has initiated a space dedicated to sharing and discussing the many approaches to performance documentation. The group currently consists of around six core members, alongside invited guests and participants, meeting monthly either in person or online.  

Nightlife and Club: The term is a broad one at WORM and covers free foyer events, workshops and community building (“Nightlife Community”), as well as hosting upcoming or established club nights. There are three main pillars to WORM’s nightlife programme. Two are thematic: one is concerned with current and leading developments in dance music (The (African) Diaspora), with selectors and organisations such as  Principe Discos (Portugal), Nyege Nyege (Uganda), Roots & Riddims (Caribbean) and Faroffa (Brazil & Cabo Verde). Another addresses core Rotterdam groups in relation to WORM’s reputation as a place for uncompromising and exciting dance music. This “Electronic Legacies” initiative works with organisations such as: Unlocked (winners best club night 2025); PRSPCT; Pinkman; TiFA APINTIE and Chorophilia. The third – WORM’s “give up the space” programme – throws the dance floor open to groups and communities who need our space most. Key organisations are: KLAUW (nominated best club night 2025), Queer Dreams, Genderbending, Queer Oriental, Levels, HipHopHuis.

WORM’s Nightlife Community programming consists of workshops, panels, and multidisciplinary events that are related to night culture. DJ & artist workshops are given by Hiphophuis, Operator, production workshops by Gain Momentum and Loch Inn, Queer Oriental give belly dancing workshops and De Zolder P2P Gathering host collective nights of mutual exchange.

Community: The communities that use WORM are core to our work. To quote Art Gang’s coordinator Mimi Van Rinsum, community-building is not just about creating art that makes an impact, rather it is community activities that should make (social, or cultural) impact on the art. Examples of workshops, community building, neighbourhood events and knowledge sharing gatherings are: Pirate Bay Stitching Club, Residue, Art Gang, Amarte, Filmtuin, Project XLR, Archival Revival and the Underground Kino Club.

Film: WORM’s film programme regularly champions new makers and radical perspectives. Bespoke WORM-based festivals such as Back to the Future and Field Recordings highlight analogue moving images and optical sound, and experimental and anthropological film, sound, and landscape cinema respectively. In 2025 and 2026, longstanding series are given new focus, often through a queer, or Fem ‘lens’: Dani van Duin (Cultfilm),  Marieke van der Lippe (Off Screen), and Social Reproductive Feminism (Charlotte Waltz and Guusje Enneking). Rotterdam is also represented through the wide-ranging and knowledgeable film communities of makers and fans who find a place at WORM: Filmtuin is WORM’s yearly open-air cinema, held in June, at sundown in Eendtrachstuin, screening a mix of arthouse films handpicked by neighbours and WORM’s film team. Filmwerkplaats’s highly popular workshops cover a range of subjects for the analogue filmmaker community such as: optical printing, 16mm, and DIY portable 16mm. WORM’s Underground Kino Club enables underground DIY filmmakers and video artists based in the Netherlands to share their work and build an alternative film community. 

Art: WORM’s take on art is multidisciplinary, experimental, and process-orientated. WORM believes in the importance of sharing the full story: we focus on the creative process, the mess, and the moments in between, rather than only presenting polished, final outcomes. Art is living material—it is never finished; it is a conversation. We treat exhibitions as collaborative spaces where artists, techniques, audiences, and materials work together to explore boundaries across media, urban life, intimacy, and (digital) identity. WORM’s 2025 collaboration with the South African Lo Def Film Factory and Roxette Capriles / House of Vineyard resulted in a powerful project on algorithmic colonialism and climate (in)justice: ‘Unmaking the Model’. During a residency, they constructed a monumental cardboard termite mound that served as a stage for hybrid creatures from the future. The production travelled between Cape Town and Rotterdam, demonstrating how international exchange can generate new artistic languages and forms of expression. 

WORM encourages people to create, play, question, and claim space—both physical and conceptual. We believe that art can happen anywhere. Our building is filled with artworks that have become part of its fabric – such as Ron van der Ende’s giant cassette sculptures, Roel Weerdenburg’s TV stack, and the landing lights from the strip at Berlin Schönefeld – many of which remain unnoticed by visitors. We host happenings and short-run exhibitions in our Wunderbar, invite collectives and art academies to present group exhibitions throughout our spaces, and occasionally dedicate our platform to a solo artist—particularly when an individual voice speaks to a broader collective experience. Examples include All Eyes On… Wahaj Bani Moufleh and Radiations of War by Yana Kononova.

Publishing and research initiatives include the following artists and names: Camera Self Surveillance (WORM x Amarte Fonds);  Umarell Ultras (Donatas Tretjakovas, Paul Mogwitz a.o.); Piet Zwart Xpub; Pleun Gremmen; Natalia Papaeva; WORM Art Gang; A POC POC Manifesto; Kunstavond collaboration; Ample Space Between; Walking Grass Agriculture (Taiwan).

All photographs of activities in WORM 2026 courtesy of: Huong Thi Lan Le and Eliška Čubova.

The film below, made by vlogger DivKid for the 2025 edition of the Dutch Modular Festival, gives a good indication of WORM – as a space and a resource – through a partner’s eyes.