ESNS Art 2026

ESNS Art x Kunstpunt: Aernout Mik - Lumber (1999)

Festival “bubbles” are often praised for the sense of togetherness they create. But in the video installation Lumber, that sense of connection is not immediately apparent.

The longer you watch, the more you notice alienating movement reflexes within the group, but also exhaustion and apathy that seems to rest over the crowd. In that sense, Lumber is unmistakably “vintage” Aernout Mik (Groningen, 1962). Although the artwork dates from 1999, it remains strikingly relevant. We live in a time in which our society sometimes appears to fall apart into irreconcilable bubbles. Has all that remains of Woodstock—the festival of all festivals from 1969—become nothing more than the mud? Or do festivals still help keep the spark of freedom, diversity, and connection alive, challenging people to step beyond their own bubble?

Lumber was created in the context of ESNS Art, a long-term collaboration between ESNS and Kunstpunt Groningen.

ESNS Echo

Students from Academie Minerva have created new visual work using four decades of ESNS photo and video material from the Groninger Archives. The art installations of ESNS Echo can be seen at various locations throughout the city.

Twenty students from Academie Minerva explored the archives as part of a specially offered offcourse (an elective within their degree programmes). Inspired by their discoveries, they created new visual works reflecting 40 years of pop culture in Groningen.

The artworks are displayed at various locations across the city, including the Grote Markt, the Forum, De Oosterpoort, and several shop windows in the city centre. The archival material is sourced from Regine Pijning and Joost Sizoo (photographs), OOG TV (videos), and Benne Holwerda, Elzo Smid, Frank Schaap, and Lisa Sportel (posters).

Photography exhibition Then and Now

To celebrate 40 years of ESNS, the photo exhibition Then and Now can be seen at the Grote Markt and the Nieuwe Markt. Curated by concert photographer Ben Houdijk, the exhibition features artists he has been capturing at Eurosonic and Noorderslag since 2012—often at the very start of their careers.

Across 10 panels, the development of 19 ESNS artists is shown: a photograph taken on a small ESNS stage early in their career, alongside a recent image of the same artist, now grown into a major name on Dutch and international stages. The rise of artists such as Dua Lipa, Fontaines D.C. and Sam Smith becomes visible at a single glance. The photographs will also be projected on a large scale onto the Forum building. The accompanying texts are written by music journalist and long-time ESNS visitor Peter van der Heide.

Location: Grote Markt and Nieuwe Markt
Dates: 14–17 January
Opening hours:
Wednesday 14 January: 16:30–23:15
Thursday 15 January: 17:30–00:00
Friday 16 January: 17:30–00:00

Noorderlicht: ESNS Photo

ESNS Photo is new. Yet it feels like something that should have always existed: ESNS has been celebrating forty years of music, makers, and midwinter nights in Groningen; Noorderlicht has been doing the same for over thirty years in the field of photography and visual culture. ESNS Photo will become an annual collaboration in which music and lens-based media meet. The first edition is in the hands of three northern photographers who intuitively understand how to capture a scene without weighing it down— in a way that fits Groningen. Down-to-earth, open, and without fuss.

What happens when three creators, each with their own rhythm and sensitivity, approach the music world from the inside? ESNS Photo 2026 shows how music settles into people, places, and colours, and how images can sometimes convey just as much feeling as sound. Northern-Dutch photographers Niels Meijer, Nick Helderman and Jantina Talsma together form a triangle of perspectives in this first edition: each with a slightly different angle, and a different way of looking—of ‘listening with their eyes.’ ESNS Photo 2026 brings their worlds together in this first edition and reveals what music can look like when you stop merely looking and start feeling.

Hip Hop Is - Groninger Museum

Valid from 12 to 20 January 2026.
www.hiphopisgroningen.nl

Kunstkantine

During ESNS, Minerva Zuiderdiep opens its doors for two days to spotlight talent. Not only musicians, but also emerging visual artists are given a place in a temporary exhibition curated by Kunstkantine in collaboration with ESNS × NOORD × Minerva.

Last year, they organised the same exhibition under their former name De Nieuwe Editie — but that chapter has closed. From now on, they continue as Kunstkantine. The canteen is their new home base: starting February 2026, they will host ongoing exhibitions and events in the Machinefabriek at Bloemstraat 38.

Kunstkantine is many things, but refuses to be boxed in.
It is not a gallery, not a restaurant, and certainly not a concept.
It is a place for ideas that collide, for plans that may fail, and for work still in motion.
A place in flux, where art doesn’t have to be polished.

“We seek experiment, doubt, and rebellion.
We give space to everything that grates, sparks, or isn’t finished yet.
For artists, makers, dreamers, doubters — anyone who dares to mix.
We take nothing for granted and nobody too seriously, least of all ourselves.”

The exhibition during ESNS shows why.
Here you’ll find works that contradict one another, contrast, and form unexpected connections: paintings that play with reality, images that release or reshape memories, colour beside rawness, dreamy photography alongside sharp observations, intuitive black-and-white pieces next to digital visuals.

In this temporary chaos, differences strengthen each other.
The result: a shifting whole that invites you to look again and again.

EPEX - Kunstlievend Genootschap Pictura x VERA Art Division

During the ESNS Festival, make sure to drop by the European Poster Explosion (EPEX) and check out some amazing silkscreen posters, art prints and other merchandise from all around Europe.

In total there are more than 20 European designers and studios from many different countries on display at EPEX: VERA Art Division (NL), Thomas Perrodin (CZ), Giov (BE), Spiegelsaal (DE), Joris Diks (NL), Lina Rieck (DE), Philip Janta (DE), Carlo Vivary (DE), Falk (DE), Simon Marchner (DE), Gemma Monostereo (SP), Maarten de With (BE) and more.

Downstairs there is an exhibition of 2nd year graphic design students of Minerva Art Academy. The European Poster Explosion is an initiative by The VERA Art Division & Kunstlievend Genootschap Pictura, and an official part of the Eurosonic/Noorderslag Festival.

Official opening: Wednesday 14 January at 16.00
Live music (dates t.b.a.): Miezer (GRN) + In Good Spirit (GRN)
EPEX is opened 14 - 17 January at Pictura. Opening hours: 13:00 – 18:00

HYPERTROVE III - SIGN

Performances by: echo+seashell, Greta Ona, Mette Sterre, Renée van Trier, Rebecca Lillich // Krüger & Ahmad Mallah

+ dj set by Rat Boyfriend

++ tooth gems by SPLINK

+++ exhibition "WALL PLUGS" (with Susanne Khalill Yusef, Ellemieke Meijer & Eunsae Lee)

Organized by Enrica Arbia, Radina Kordova & SIGN

Hyperreal, hyperpop, hypermeta, hyperdata. Life as we know it is blowing out of proportion. Social and self-transformation are part of our everyday collective responsibility, and we still need to pay our rent?!?!!!
HYPERTROVE is a stage for addressing personal and social environments, where we question reality, the fictional, the meta, ourselves, and each other. It is a daring place for us and the public to take part in a collective experience that blurs the lines between music, sound, and performance art.

The systems around us are collapsing, the core is exposed, and it's rotten. We are vigilant to support a safe space for open narratives and togetherness. We will always search for a community, something to get a hold of, to grasp, by questioning our sanity and our part in society. Life is too fast; it requires a lot from us: To keep moving forward, to keep liquifying, to keep together, and to look into each other’s desires, complexities, values, ethics, and existential thoughts.

<3 It is all too much, and sometimes we also want to dance. <3

NP3 | RE:Search:Gallery

NP3 invites you to this special ESNS edition of Spectral Shimmer, a cross-disciplinary improvisational sharing of frequencies, visuals, actions, and sounds. We will have a setup for audio and visual ready for you to plug in instruments, laptops, iPads, synths, or software patches, come join our space of experiment and collaboration!

Since the end of November, four artists have joined the LABitat trajectory: Aisha Hachem, Ra’fat Ali, An Ye Zhi de Jong, and Jurjen Galema. For ESNS Art, the four artists show their progress in Open LAB format at NP3 | RE:Search:Gallery.

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.

More info: www.np3.nu