LABitat Final Presentations
Aisha Hachem
An Ye Zhi de Jong
Jurjen Galema
Ra’fat Ali
February 5 - February 27
Thursdays & Fridays
13.00 - 17.00 h.
Finissage
Friday, February 27 from 16.00 h.
Since the end of November 2025, Aisha Hachem, An Ye Zhi de Jong, Jurjen Galema, and Ra’fat Ali have been part of the LABitat trajectory. Over the past months, they have worked at NP3 | RE:Search:Gallery, using the space as their own for experimentation, research, and creation.
Throughout the programme, the artists regularly shared their working process during Open LABitats, public moments where they could test out and experiment with exhibition techniques and audience interaction. To end their research period, Aisha, An Ye Zhi, Jurjen, and Ra’fat present the results of their research in a final presentation period over the course of one month. Opening on February 5, the period culminates with a finissage on February 27. During this period, artists continue to develop their work further, showing an ongoing process that started on November 23.
Aisha Hachem works with weaving and embroidery to explore memory, identity, and cultural heritage, reinterpreting Middle Eastern textile traditions through collaborative labs and workshops that transform ancestral knowledge into a contemporary, shared visual language.
An Ye Zhi de Jong, winner of the Groninger Visual Arts Stipends, explores identity from the perspective of a transracial adoptee through installations, sculpture, and writing, addressing intercountry adoption, colonial narratives, and racism against Asians in the Netherlands. While reflecting on home and belonging in relation to her recent research journey to China as part of her Noordenaars Artist in Space project.
Jurjen Galema creates soft, colorful sculptural worlds that explore themes of gender, identity, and popular culture, while experimenting with alternative modes of presentation through immersive installations. His process and new sculptures in the window exhibition space are 24/7 visible from the St. Walburgstraat.
Ra’fat Ali develops a hybrid filmmaking practice that rethinks narrative and visual language, drawing on his experience of displacement and invisibility after moving to the Netherlands. He explores questions of identity, land, and language, allowing fragmentation, layering, and instability to become central elements of his work.
LABitat is NP3’s development programme that aims at fostering artistic research and experimentation. The name LABitat merges “LAB” (laboratory) and “habitat” (living environment), reflecting what NP3 offers: an environment where artists can experiment, research, and present to develop their practice in a supportive artistic environment.
Also check out other Arts events in Groningen, Workshops in Groningen, Exhibitions in Groningen.
