BuurtTuin van Verhalen: How a Small Neighbourhood Project Grew into a Living Cultural Infrastructure

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 continuously growing ecosystem. Over the course of the year, the project demonstrated not only the social value of culture participation, but also the long-term potential of participatory cultural infrastructure in neighbourhoods undergoing urban transition.

From Project to Shared Place

At the heart of the project was the Community Living Lab and neighbourhood garden at Slauerhoffstraat 7HS — a small but active space where residents, artists, volunteers and organisations gradually built relationships through repeated encounters and shared activities. The programme included:

• street art interventions and murals,

• gardening and planting workshops,

• spoken word and poetry gatherings,

• yoga and wellbeing sessions,

• neighbourhood markets,

• and collective meals.

Importantly, these activities were not programmed not for residents, but developed with them through co-creation. Participation grew steadily throughout the year. Residents increasingly took initiative themselves, contributed ideas, helped organise activities and began to see the garden as a shared place belonging to the neighbourhood rather than to a single organisation. This shift from participation to co-ownership became one of the project’s most meaningful outcomes.

More Than a Garden

As the project developed, it became increasingly clear that BuurtTuin van Verhalen was never only about gardening or cultural activities. The project created a new kind of informal civic space inside a neighbourhood preparing for large-scale redevelopment. In a context where social cohesion, local identity and community trust are often under pressure, the garden became a place for encounter, reflection, exchange and collective imagination.

Stories, memories and lived experiences became part of the cultural fabric of the neighbourhood itself. The project also revealed how public space can simultaneously function as:

• a learning environment,

• a cultural archive,

• a social meeting place,

• and a platform for participation.

This insight has become increasingly important within SAMA’s broader organisational development.

Growing Beyond the Neighbourhood

One of the most remarkable aspects of the project was how far its influence spread beyond the Dichtersbuurt itself. Throughout the year, the methodologies and experiences developed within the project were shared within multiple national and international contexts.

The project was connected to:

• Urbanites United: Amsterdam, as a Living Canvas festival

• STAR 2.0 (Erasmus+) presentation during training in Italy

• Placemaking Week Europe in Reggio Emilia

• Citizen Science Conference in Lausanne.

The digital Street Art Map and newly created murals also became part of educational and research projects connected to art, heritage, urban development and social studies. At the same time, local partnerships deepened significantly. Collaborations with Eigen Haard, EigenWijks, Groene Kans Nieuw-West, Nieuwe Makers van Nieuw-West, VoorUit and De Schrijverscentrale strengthened the bridge between the cultural and social domains. The project also directly contributed to new initiatives and funding trajectories, including the development of STRAATWIJS — a new collaborative framework connecting art, research, participation and public space methodologies.

A Turning Point for SAMA

Perhaps most importantly, BuurtTuin van Verhalen became a turning point in SAMA’s own transformation as an organisation. Over the past 16 years, SAMA has evolved from a grassroots street art initiative into a much broader participatory cultural practice operating at the intersection of:

• street art,

• participatory heritage,

• non-formal education,

• digital culture,

• public space activation,

• and neighbourhood transition.

The project made visible that the real strength of SAMA does not lie only in murals or cultural programming themselves, but in the ability to connect these different fields into one evolving civic-cultural ecosystem. Within this ecosystem, a mural is rarely just a mural. It simultaneously becomes:

• artwork,

• neighbourhood dialogue,

• heritage layer,

• educational tool,

• storytelling platform,

• and community infrastructure.

The experiences from BuurtTuin van Verhalen are now directly informing SAMA’s future direction, including:

• the Living Archive methodology,

• STRAATWIJS,

• STAR-UP,

• and the Digital Street Art Depot.

Together, these projects are helping shape a new model of participatory cultural infrastructure for young urban culture and neighbourhoods in transition.

Looking Forward

The strongest sign of success may simply be this:residents and partners do not want the project to end.

Throughout the year, participants repeatedly expressed the desire to continue and expand the activities into 2026 and beyond.

What started as a funded neighbourhood project has gradually become something much more durable:a shared cultural space,a local knowledge system,and a growing example of how culture participation can contribute to long-term social resilience, civic engagement and community ownership.

For SAMA, BuurtTuin van Verhalen confirmed that the future of cultural participation lies not only in organising activities, but in building the relational infrastructures that allow communities, stories and public space to evolve together over time.