Finissage: Shapeshifters

Join the finissage of the exhibition Shapeshifters: On Wounds, Wonders and Transformation,on 11 January 2026. This group exhibition brings together works by al-yené, Antonio Jose Guzman & Iva Jankovic, Georges Senga, Kader Attia, Kosisochukwu Nnebe, Leah Zhang, Pei-Hsuan Wang, Sammy Baloji & Cécile Fromont, Mirelle van Tulder and Anna Safiatou Touré. Together, their practices examine how colonialism has shaped the ways museums, archives and other institutions of knowledge are perceived and understood, revealing the (im)material scars imposed by systemic violence.

Shapeshifters invites visitors to refigure one’s own relationship to these power structures by stepping into relations built on curiosity and empathy. The exhibition title draws from science fiction writer Octavia E. Butler, for whom ‘shapeshifting’ refers not only to the ability to transform at will but to a survival strategy, an imaginative technology and a means of resisting domination. In the same vein, the artists in Shapeshifters use their work as a device to unsettle fixed narratives, confront entrenched systems of power and open space for alternative ways of knowing, relating and being in the world.

Working across various research-driven practices including film, sonic installation, sculpture, painting and other media, the participating artists trace how stories, identities and objects have been categorised, controlled or erased across different sociopolitical contexts. Just as importantly, their works reclaim and reimagine these subjects, allowing them to shift, resist and take on new forms. Commissioned by Framer Framed, number of new works by Sammy Baloji, Pei-Hsuan Wang and Georges Senga will be presented for the first time.

At its core, Shapeshifters explores the (im)possibilities for knowledge institutions to evolve and move forward based on care and reciprocity. Questions of ownership, value, loss and repair run through the exhibition. The artworks encourage continuous becoming and challenge what is remembered, who is represented and how institutions might embrace a shape-shifting process: to reorganise space and time for connection, where spirituality and wisdom can grow.

The scenography of the exhibition by Bureau LADA creates an extended platform within the space for reflection, dialogue and exchange – this includes an opening symposium on 17 October contextualising core topics of the exhibition, as well as guided tours, film screenings, participatory workshops and performances.

Finissage 11 January 2026

Moving Labels — Walk and Public Conversation
14:00-16:00

In closing of the Moving Labels workshop series, we meet where we started at the Wereldmuseum to open up questions generated along the way. How do museum labels speak? How do they produce distance and authority? How does language fix history while exposing its fractures? If we read labels as narrative surfaces, how are they textured by what is told, and what remains withheld?

From the Wereldmuseum, we walk to Framer Framed. During the walk, the work process is shared: reflections on reading, rewriting, and performing labels; on moving language out of place; on how stories shift as they move through bodies, encounters, and contexts. Walking becomes a proposition for thinking alongside one another while crossing between institutions, their histories and presents.

At Framer Framed, over warm drinks and food, we host a collective conversation around the challenges and co-responsibilities of imagining the past critically; how this exercise is taken on; who is able to do so, and from which positions. The afternoon sustains uncertainty, listening, and hesitation, creating space to think labels otherwise, together.

14:00 Meet at Wereldmuseum
14:30 Walk to Framer Framed
15:00 Break
15:20 Conversation with Barbara Neves Alves

Performance by Antonio Jose Guzman and Iva Jankovic
16:00-16:30

The 15-minute performance unfolds as a live poem and sound composition, moving from the resonance of a cajón peruano to distorted synthesizers, dub basslines, and industrial rhythms. The work activates the artists’ installation Orbital Mechanics through sound and spoken word, evoking migration, belonging, and collective memory.

Register for the finissage here.

Participating Artists
al-yené
Antonio Jose Guzman & Iva Jankovic
Georges Senga
Kader Attia
Kosisochukwu Nnebe
Leah Zhang
Pei-Hsuan Wang
Sammy Baloji & Cécile Fromont
Mirelle van Tulder
Anna Safiatou Touré

Spatial Design
Bureau LADA

Graphic Design
Chen Jhen

Location
Framer Framed
Oranje-Vrijstaatkade 71
1093 KS, Amsterdam

Finissage
Sunday 11 January 2026 from 14:00 to 18.00. Register here.

Opening Times
16 October 2025 – 11 January 2026
Tuesday – Sunday, 12:00-18:00

Free entry, pay what you can.

Credits

Shapeshifters: On Wounds, Wonders and Transformation is produced by Framer Framed in partnership with Wereldmuseum Amsterdam. The exhibition is developed from the framework of the NWO research project Pressing Matter: Ownership, Value and the Question of Colonial Heritage in Museums, in which Framer Framed is a societal partner. Additional support is generously provided by the Mondrian Initiative, the Mondriaan Fund, the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV), Creative Industries Fund NL, TextielLab, Keramiekmuseum Princessehof, and Jan van Eyck Academie.

The exhibition subtitle ‘On Wounds, Wonders and Transformation’ is inspired by Nuraini Juliastuti’s publication project Stories of Wounds and Wonder, a two-year research commissioned by Amsterdam-based organisation If I Can’t Dance, I Don’t Want To Be Part Of Your Revolution.

Framer Framed is supported by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science; Amsterdam Fund for the Arts; Municipality of Amsterdam; and VriendenLoterij Fonds.