Living Forms: Experiences between Architecture and Emotion

Ma Yansong is renowned for his poetic, organic designs, which resist the rigid lines of Western modernism. His work invites you to experience architecture differently, together with others: through your senses and with attention to feeling and imagination. During this programme, you will meet filmmakers, artists, architects, designers, and thinkers who explore themes inspired by Ma’s vision.

Through performances and conversations, this programme invites you to explore Ma Yansong: Architecture and Emotion. Exchange ideas – about the work, the concepts and dreams associated with it, and your own thoughts on it – with various creators from the exhibition, including filmmakers, artists and architects.

Tickets

Buy a ticket for the session you’d like to attend. You can find more about the programme below.

16:00-17:30 - Beyond the Wall with Xu Weichao and Mark Minkjan

How is life organized in social housing through architecture? How are design values fractured in idealism and reality? Journalist and film maker Xu Weichao will speak with Mark Minkjan about his video installation ‘Beyond the Wall’. The work documents lived experiences through the architecture of the MAD-designed Baiziwan Social Housing project in Beijing. The conversation follows selected clips, reflecting on values and practices of social housing in the Netherlands, China and elsewhere.

Xu Weichao is a Chinese journalist and documentary filmmaker. Together with Yiqian Zhang, he created the video installation Beyond the Wall (2025), which is on display in the exhibition Ma Yansong: Architecture and Emotion. Xu explains how he made the video and what life is like in the Baiziwan Social Housing complex.

Mark Minkjan is an urban geographer, researcher and writer. He started Loom, helps organise public programmes at the Rotterdam Academy of Architecture, and co-founded Platform Woonopgave and Failed Architecture.

19:00-20:00 - Multipolar Technoculture with Gary Zhexi Zhang

How do you describe a historical slipstream while you’re in it? This talk explores framings, questions, and research trajectories for an as-yet-unwritten book of essays and fictions tracing geopolitical, ecological, and cosmological narratives through emerging technocultures of contemporary China and beyond. From climate transition to basic science, digital platforms to internet scams, China’s technological production is reshaping the landscape of a multipolar world.

Gary Zhexi Zhang is an artist and writer. He explores the interconnectedness of cosmology, technology and economics. Zhang discusses the influence of Chinese technology and digital culture and their global role.

20:30-21:30 - Parallel Resonances with Aimée Theriot and Vivian Wang

In response to unbound echo, Aimée Theriot’s interactive sound installation at the Nieuwe Instituut, multidisciplinary artist and musician Vivian Wang joins Aimée Theriot to present Parallel Resonances, a durational listening experience that unfolds layered temporalities, evokes emotive impulses and follows spectral traces using found sound, field recording, collective voices and live material. The performance draws on the philosophy of Shanshui, where landscape becomes a space for reflection, fluidity, and interconnectedness.

Vivian Wang is a composer, sound artist, and musician. She creates works exploring sound, art, culture and space. In a performance, Wang will share her ideas about shanshui, an ancient form of Chinese painting.

Aimée Theriot is a sound artist, researcher, organiser and musician. She explores the world through sound and vibration. Her work unbound echo is part of the exhibition Ma Yansong: Architecture and Emotion.

Partners

The visits of Gary Zhexi Zhang, Vivian Wang, and Xu Weichao were arranged by the Nieuwe Instituut International Visitors Programme, with support from the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Make your evening complete!

Combine this event with a visit to our exhibitions – admission to the museum is free on Thursday evenings. Fancy a bite to eat? Join us in the Nieuwe Café!