This exhibition by Jan Dietvorst at Foamlab is part of a series named the Solemnities follow the highlights of the Christian calendar.

This exhibition by Jan Dietvorst at Foamlab is part of a series named the Solemnities follow the highlights of the Christian calendar.

After the unique presentation of a group of six Asmat mask costumes from the collection of artist Jan Dietvorst, the idea surfaces to create a Christmas special of this show. One of the Jipae an Doroe is selected and placed in a forest of pine trees, as a true king. The whole of Foamlab is transformed into an evergreen forest from which the mask costume emerges. This show has become the start of a series of exhibitions at Foamlab commemorating the major feasts of the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar.

A large sheet of paper blocks the view through the window of Foamlab for passers by. Only a funny looking hole provides a glimpse of the world inside. This world sprung forth from the hands of Eva Klee, who returns for a few weeks to Foamlab. She used to have her studio there, but now she is building a town. Her residency is accompanied by a festive meal in the middle of her city, and several occasions for discussions and reflections on the work in progress.

This first show at Foamlab is probably a world premiere. From the collection of the Dutch artist Jan Dietvorst a group of six mask costumes known as Jipae and Doroe are shown together. In any anthropological collection shown world wide in museums you might see one or two of these Asmat artifacts, but a group of six is unheard of. A group like this would come together in an ‘Adoption feast’ where the relationships in family life are restored after the death of a family member.

Filmmaker Jan Cornelis Mol (1891-1954) was a pioneer of time-lapse photography, using it to record the tiny lives of micro-organisms. He wanted to show in film what otherwise would be visible only to the most tenacious gaze through a microscope. In this way the public was plunged into the life inside a droplet of water or sucked-up into the bloodstream of a frog. A highlight in his work are the images of crystallisation. Using common photographic chemicals his recordings under great magnification of the crystallisation processes revealed wonderful abstract patterns.

This Sprinckelink event at Foamlab in Amsterdam brings together sound collectors for a session of sharing the brightest sonic diamonds from their archives of recorded sounds of landscapes, animals and music. This results in an evening of crisp, flabby or spongey sound-snippets from collectors reacting to the presented audio files. Some true gems come from a Russian collection of frog and fish sound-recordings accompanied on the LP by the comments of a Russian biologist.

For the ideal Christmas dinner, all the guest sport impressive beards. To celebrate the second Christmas-special a festive dinner is organized at Foamlab just next to the exhibition. Dress-code: Biblical, which for obscure reasons implies beards. So beards and curtains for everyone. This jolly congregation sits down at a table full of food and miniature roman soldiers that seem to have fled the arid landscape of the diorama of the show and found a true Cockaigne, a land of plenty on our table.

Sawdust on the floor, in the food and up your clothes in this show at Foamlab Amsterdam. The circus has come to Foamlab inspired by the tiny handcrafted circus by the artist Calder. Today we concentrate on the importance of play in creative practices. Designers, architects, artists and performers come together for a session of make-up and glitter.

Biologists, artists and Sanctuary supporters are among the participants in the Spiegelaer event at Foamlab. They are hurtled head-first into the rain-forest canopy during this research report by Theun Karelse on a fieldtrip to the Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary. A incomplete but detailed introduction of the workings of the rain-forest, plants and parts of plants is paralleled by the hypnogotic vision of the forest in the work of cineast Werner Herzog and his work with a navigable balloon in South America.

The artist Matthew Barney comments on his rich worlds in a splendid interview on internet. This modern day Hieronimous Bosch is a great inspirer and the Foamlab team goes through the offices in Amsterdam to collect objects suitable for recreating such worlds in the lab. The interview and special food-design and suitable clothing create a full Barney experience for a night about this confident artist and his huge works.

The world of theoretical Physics was brightened-up by the charming genius of safecracker, drummer, womaniser and Nobel-prise winner Richard Feynman. In an interview with BBC Horizon Feynman explains eloquently how scientific knowledge enriches his perception of beauty and convincingly dismantles the notion of ‘Entzauberung’ as caused by science. This meeting at Foamlab concentrates on the intricacies of creative processes.

Spiegelaer is a series of meetings at FoAM Lab in Amsterdam that started in October 2005. In these events the Lab is opened for an evening of visuals, sounds, tastes and discussions around a central theme. The participants are selected and invited to form a group of mixed professions and back-grounds but with a shared interest in the topic of the event. The name Spiegelaer indicates the cross-disciplinary nature of the series and comes from the old Dutch word for an alchemist.

Both FoAM Labs in Brussels and Amsterdam have periodic public events, designed as event series.

FoAM and its collaborators see public events as ways to disseminate our work, meet new people, as well as provide exposure to people and ideas we respect.

We present our work to international conferences, exhibitions and festivals. These activities are scalable interventions - from a lecture given by one of FoAM's collaborators, to a full-grown responsive environment, tended to by a whole team. We prefer to tailor our public events on an individual basis, allowing us to work in a site- and context specific manner.