Sonic Acts Festival 2022 is planned to take place from 25 to 27 February at various locations in Amsterdam and online.

A weekend of talks, performances, films and reading groups will be accompanied by a month-long exhibition at W139, along with indoor and outdoor sound installations, workshops and excursions throughout February.

The preparation of this edition of our biennial festival comes at a time when many cultural events across Europe are being cancelled or postponed. Despite a lot of uncertainty, we are continuing to monitor and adapt the festival programme to the evolving situation.

In 2022, Sonic Acts reaffirms its ongoing focus on climate crisis, which began in 2015 with the festival edition The Geologic Imagination as well as the project Dark Ecology in Northern Norway and Russia. Our research builds on insights from critical theory and the environmental humanities as they continue to witness environmental degradation and systems collapse. It follows the devastation that humans leave in their wake, tracing the slow violence of extractive imperialism and toxicity.

Over the past two years since our last edition, we have invited artists and thinkers to further their research and practices, with an eye to investigating pollution and its effects across life and nonlife. This has taken form in the home-based mentorship and residency programmes Underexposed and Overexposed, the year-round event series Night Air and the publication of Ecoes magazine – in addition to newly commissioned works and other print and audio releases. Ultimately, Sonic Acts Festival 2022 intends to give substance and resonance to the unique takes of our collaborators, familiar and new.

More information about the programme and participants will be announced soon.

This year, Sonic Acts will not be offering festival passes. Tickets to individual events will be made available closer to the date.

In the meantime, please keep an eye on Sonic Acts channels, subscribe to our newsletter and consider joining our volunteer team.