Liberation Festival 2026: Learning to Understand History

KABK Spotlight: Art & Freedom

This year, the Royal Academy of Art (KABK) presents two compelling installations by alumni:

· Akash Kumar (Industrial Design 2024):

This interactive installation invites you to step into that space of possibility and build your own windmill of thoughts, to fold it, fill it, and let it carry your message.

Using a simple sheet of paper, you can draw, write, scribble, or express whatever freedom means to you in this moment. It doesn’t have to be perfect; your ideas can be messy, quiet, loud, or unfinished.

What matters is the act of letting them take form. Once you’ve created your piece, let the wind take it. Let it move beyond you, carried by curiosity and exchange, travelling as long as the wind keeps moving.

Your folded story becomes part of a shared landscape of voices, where each creation holds a personal meaning yet connects to something larger

· Kamau Nganga (Fine Art 2024):

People Watching (2024) is an installation consisting of three rooms and six figures made of scrap-wood as well as an archival video work. On show here is the dining room. The figures exist in their own constructed domestic space.

They have the form and potential to be recognised and understood as human and existing in a human space but without any will or desires. They can only be interrogated while “performing” in the scene and transform back into inanimate objects when they are removed from it.

Their lifeless bodies were maneuvered from room to room, placed in relation with one another, to give the idea that they are not lifeless puppets but living performers

The Student Experience

These works are part of The Student Experience, a collaborative platform at the Malieveld where The Hague’s educational institutions unite to celebrate student talent, creativity, and community. Together, they highlight how students enrich the city’s vibrancy and bring the spirit of freedom to life.

Don’t miss it—be part of the celebration!