Opening: Collection as Cosmos & Dommelplein

The museum is turning 90, and we warmly invite you to celebrate this special moment with us. On this day, we present a fully renewed museum: the opening of Collection as Cosmos, our new collection presentation; Dommelplein, our new public ground floor; a redesigned entrance area; and a renewed café. A milestone for the museum and for the city of Eindhoven.

A new collection presentation: Collection as Cosmos

Collection as Cosmos invites us to experience art, time and history differently. While museums often present artworks along a fixed timeline, this exhibition brings together artworks across different periods as if they were star arrangements in a sky. Inspired by the Greek meaning of the word ‘kosmos’, meaning both ‘order’ and ‘decoration’, constellations of artworks are arranged across the galleries, creating various experiences of time. The exhibition opens with Andromeda by Italian Baroque painter Guercino and concludes with the Pleiades star cluster featured in a work by Nolan Oswald Dennis. Along the way, visitors encounter a grotto containing personal objects, loaned by ninety museum friends who connected their own stories to works from the collection. In the museum tower hangs the 24-metre-long Sonic Celestial Rope – Dodecagon Infinite Curl in Red Staccato by Haegue Yang. Each day at solar noon, its bells are sounded, linking the heavens to the ground and making it palpable that the cosmos is not distant, but present here, among the artworks, above and beneath our feet.

Dommelplein: the new public ground floor

Dommelplein is the museum’s fully accessible public ground floor, opening new possibilities for artistic and civic use. The space hosts long-term and evolving projects including a daily water ritual by Sarkis, L’Atelier Aquarelle dans l’eau; Feminist School of Painting by Ad Minoliti, a four-year programme of collective learning developed with local artists, activists, and researchers; Ghost Feed by john gerrard, and Geo—Design by Design Academy Eindhoven, curated by Merve Bedir and Metahaven. Alongside these, Ayoung Kim develops a new iteration of her speculative Delivery Dancer universe, extending her cosmology of time, migration, and simulation. Dommelplein also hosts collaborations with local partners including ADEZIV, Archipel, Studio Woensel-West, and Tante Netty, positioning the museum as a shared civic space for experimentation, care, and exchange.

A renovated Van Abbe café

A renovated museum café, designed by Daphna Laurens, offers a warm contemporary meeting place for visitors and residents. Overlooking the Dommel River, it invites pause and conversation. The menu includes seasonal soups, fresh sandwiches, excellent coffee, and a curated selection of wines.

Entrance area

A welcoming, transparent entrance designed by Van Eijk & Van der Lubbe that makes the museum more accessible and aligns with our mission to be a pleasant meeting place.

Programme

11:00
Museum opens. From 11:00 onwards, you are invited to wander freely through live activations and participatory artworks across the museum.

11:00 – 17:00 Collection as Cosmos (Collection Building)
90 Narrators / 90 Stories / 90 Voices. In the grotto and throughout the galleries, personal objects of visitors are presented alongside artworks, revealing how art connects to individual memories, life moments, and lived experience.

12:15 – 13:15 & 15:00 – 16:00 Dommelplein (ground floor Collection Building)
In the workshop by Sarkis, L’Atelier d’aquarelle dans l’eau, participants are invited into a watercolour ritual. Drops of pigment disperse in water, forming moving shapes that slowly dissolve and disappear, an image that exists only briefly, a fleeting personal memory.

12:30 – 17:00 Outside
Continuous stargazing and sun-observing sessions take place throughout the day in collaboration with Dr. AF Philips Observatory.

13:00 – 13:30 Tower (Collection Building)
Official opening by Defne Ayas, Director, followed by Yolande Zola Zoli van der Heide, Senior Curator. Followed by keynotes speeches in the Auditorium (limited seats available at the door) by Gargi Bhattacharyya (We, the Heartbroken) and Alice Sparkly Kat (Postcolonial Astrology: Reading the Planets Through Capital, Power, and Labour) between 14:00 - 16:00.

13:00 – 16:00 Kids Atelier at Dommelplein (ground floor Collection Building)
Kids Atelier: Families and children can draw and colour or participate in Zodiac Bingo.

13:00 – 16:00 Dommelplein (ground floor Collection Building)
Ad Minoliti – Feminist School of Painting. A living classroom for collective learning, where painting becomes a shared practice of inquiry, care, and transformation.

13:30 – 13:50 & 14:30 – 14:50 Second floor Collection as Cosmos (Collection Building)
In Crystalline Floorpieces / Ocean snake by Jennifer Tee, time and language come together. In reading sessions where visitors lie on the carpet, you can listen to special “eco-poetry”.

solar noon* Tower (Collection Building)
In the museum tower, you can listen to the bells of the 24-meter-long Sonic Celestial Rope – Dodecagon Infinite Curl in Red Staccato by Haegue Yang. *Eindhoven solar noon, not at 12:00, but at the moment the sun reaches its highest point in Eindhoven, around 13:36.

14:00 – 16:00 Classroom
Family Art Club Special: Grief colouring session designed by artist G. Participants are invited to draw in the classroom and express emotion through colour without words.

16:00 – 22:00 Van Abbe café 
Drinks, bites, dancing at Van Abbe café. Join us for celebratory drinks and enjoy music by DJ’s in our renewed Van Abbe café.

Collection as Cosmos is made possible by:

Dommelplein is made possible by:

The new museum garden is made possible by: