When I first began my internship, I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to learn. My academic interests had long revolved around the ways museums and curators present art, especially work that exists outside traditional Western art historical narratives. I wanted to better understand how contemporary institutions could display visual culture without repeating the distorted frameworks created through colonial excavation and institutionalization. More specifically, I was inter

Anna had returned from a trip to Valencia, feeling inspired and energetic as ever. As she recounted her travels, she told me about an artist who had particularly inspired her: Mister Changa. After showing me souvenirs from the trip, including two limited edition booklets about some of Mister Changa's work, I decided to try and share what I've learned. Every March, Valencia burns hundreds of artworks. For many visitors, the Fallas festival is a spectacle of fire. Monumental sc

Earlier this summer, I arrived as a foreigner coming to indulge in a Dutch summer. However, I also came as a museum intern preparing to enter a new world of professionalism. To better understand SAMA, I needed to learn about the institutions surrounding it. Anna gave me an ICOM museum card for the summer, which grants free access to museums all over the world. However, as I quickly learned, not every museum applied to this. On my museum journey, I had to ask myself a vital qu

On a particularly sunny afternoon, I waited beneath Kraaiennest Station in Amsterdam Zuid-Oost, an area I’d never been to before. Before our mural crawl with Bijlmer Boogie began, I found myself doing what I often do in a new place: looking around. I stood still near a pillar to take in my surroundings. It already felt different from the parts of Amsterdam I had come to know. Most notably, the pace was different: leisurely with this strong undertone of excitement. Soon, I met

Finding Words for a Journey I Had Already Begun "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world."— Ludwig Wittgenstein For the past four days I have been smiling. Not because I suddenly had a brilliant new idea. But because, after fifteen years of building the Street Art Museum Amsterdam (SAMA), I finally found the language to articulate something I had intuitively known all along. Sometimes our work evolves faster than our vocabulary. That is exactly what happened to

As I learned on July 1st, Keti Koti serves as both a day of remembrance and a celebration of freedom. It honors the resilience of those who endured slavery while celebrating the cultures, traditions, and communities that continue to flourish because of that resilience. “Keti Koti” or “Broken Chains” in Sranan Tongo, takes place on July 1st to commemorate the moment where slavery was abolished in Suriname and the former Netherlands Antilles on July 1st, 1863. In recent years,

What can a Community Garden teach scientists? Quite a lot, as it turns out. This July, Stichting Street Art Museum Amsterdam (SAMA) will travel to Ghent, Belgium, to present our latest research at the European Society for Ecological Economics (ESEE2026)—one of Europe's leading conferences exploring how we can build fairer, more sustainable societies. Our contribution, "Reclaiming Urban Voices: Street Art as Living Heritage and Environmental Governance in Amsterdam," was devel

Disclaimer: This day moved so quickly that I did not capture photos at the meeting itself, but please enjoy the intermittent photos I did get to occasionally break up the text! The Garden Beneath An Impending Storm When most people think about museums and curators, they probably imagine exhibitions, artworks, and gallery walls. Recently, I learned that some of the most important curatorial work happens long before any artwork exists at all. In preparation for a strategy meeti

One of my first opportunities to explore more of Amsterdam came when Anna invited me to join her as a plus one to Chinny Bond's birthday party. However, this was more than any mere social gathering; contemporary artists who laid the foundations for the Amsterdam’ street art culture were going to be in attendance. As an intern at a museum dedicated to Street Art, it felt like an opportunity to better understand the people who form the beating heart of this community. The celeb

For my first day as Street Art Museum Amsterdam's newest intern, I had the opportunity to attend the national Play Outside Day event. It was also my first visit to SAMA Headquarters and my first time exploring Amsterdam Nieuw-West. I arrived as a complete stranger: unfamiliar with both the neighborhood and the people who call it home. As I approached the headquarters, I found myself staring up at a large pink face painted across the side of a building. Before I could spend to

Where are you from? Hi! My name is Isabelle, and I was born and raised in the Colorado mountains. My roots are in the United States, but I have spent most of my younger life traveling to and from various places with my family, who have ventured to bring the world together through the power of music. I do not believe in the stationary concept of home, but I feel lucky enough to call every place I find a community a home of sorts. Wherever I have been fortunate enough to vent

Yesterday, SAMA had the pleasure of participating in EXTREME CITIZENS SCIENCE HUB Amsterdam — a day dedicated to exploring how knowledge can be created together with citizens, communities, researchers and institutions. We attended as a team: together with our intern Isabelle Zamundu and volunteer Furkan Demir, we joined conversations, explored projects and shared SAMA’s growing work at the intersection of culture, participation and public knowledge. Walking through the event,

Last week, I finally had time to sit down with a fresh copy of Exposer le street art by Eric van Essche (CFC-Éditions), a publication to which I had the pleasure of contributing. Almost simultaneously, while the Dutch immersive and cultural innovation world temporarily migrated to London, I unexpectedly found myself catching up with an old acquaintance — Lee Bofkin of Global Street Art. Our conversation drifted from archives to public space, from digitisation to collections,

Measuring impact remains one of the most challenging questions for organisations working in social innovation, education, and community participation. This week, SAMA took part in the KEMs (Key Enabling Methodologies) Impact Session organised by CLICKNL, where researchers, practitioners and organisations gathered to discuss a deceptively simple question: How do we measure impact? The session revealed that impact is not about counting outputs, attendance or publications. Inste

I've been meaning to start a monthly column for a long time, so here we are! There are months at Street Art Museum Amsterdam that feel like a year compressed into four weeks. This was one of them. Somewhere between funding applications, VR testing sessions, neighbourhood breakfasts, strategic meetings, European project calls, interviews, poetry unveilings, broken technology, hopeful young people, redevelopment discussions and endless coffee, I suddenly realised again what SAM

In 2025, with support from the Fonds voor Cultuurparticipatie through the Samen Cultuurmaken programme, Street Art Museum Amsterdam (SAMA) launched BuurtTuin van Verhalen in the Dichtersbuurt of Amsterdam Nieuw-West. What began as a modest neighbourhood-based cultural participation project quickly evolved into something much larger: a living meeting place where street art, storytelling, gardening, poetry, shared meals and community knowledge came together within one continuou

Where are you from? Hi, I’m Noah. I’m 20 years old and I’m from Montreal, Canada, where I was born and raised in a strong Italian family. Growing up in Montreal means being surrounded by so many different cultures, languages, personalities, and forms of expression. In a place so connected to the internet it’s only natural, and I think that environment shaped the way I see creativity and community today. What do you like to do in your free time? In my free time, I enjoy music

Where are you from? I’m originally from Hanoi, Vietnam, and I’m currently studying and working freelance in Montreal, Canada as a visual artist and graphic designer. My 3.5 years in Montreal have deeply shaped me — not only as a designer and artist, but also as a person. It’s a beautiful city full of beautiful people. I’ve met so many inspiring people and built meaningful relationships, which I find the most precious. Being far away from home pushed me out of my comfort zone

Street art has become one of the most visible cultural expressions of our time. From large-scale murals to small interventions tucked between streets, cities across Europe are filled with artworks that shape identity, tell stories, and reflect the communities that surround them. And yet—despite their presence—most of these works remain structurally invisible. They are photographed, shared, liked, and sometimes mapped. But rarely are they managed, preserved, or understood as p

If 2025 taught us anything, it’s this: Street art is never just about walls . It’s about people, memory and the quiet transformation of a neighbourhood in motion. At Street Art Museum Amsterdam (SAMA) , this year was not defined by scale, but by depth. Not by certainty, but by resilience. And above all—by connection. A Year Built on Transition (and Trust) 2025 was, in many ways, a year “in-between.”A year of moving, rebuilding, rethinking. With no structural funding at the st