Non-fiction is an office for cultural, urban and techological innovation, founded by Michiel van Iersel and Juha van ‘t Zelfde in 2008, providing cutting-edge ideas and activities. Based in Amsterdam, it is a collaborative vehicle for making things public and bringing together public and private interests in the field of spatial and cultural strategies, new media and the arts.
Non-fiction’s vision is to create better cities and public domains. We aspire to create cities, cultural institutions, social networks and companies that are lively, diverse, sustainable and inspiring – and thereby improve people’s quality of life. We (help) build, organise, think, analyse, communicate, position, improve, curate, develop and innovate.
We believe in open collaboration, scanning specific contexts and environments and finding fitting solutions for the particular needs of our clients. Innovative strategies are being articulated through a growing network of professional partners. As motors and productive elements of change, we (re)activate buildings and urban centers.
Our office is situated in the former chemistry lab of the Netherlands Institute of Cultural Heritage, right in the middle of the Amsterdam’s vibrant museum quarter (Museumplein).
Michiel van Iersel
Michiel van Iersel (1978) studied Business and Cultural Sciences at the Erasmus University, before continuing with Asian Studies at the University of Amsterdam and Metropolitan Studies at the Humboldt-Universität in Berlin. During this time he was already active in arts and culture as a member of the student body Studium Generale, and through his involvement with various artists’ initiatives. After an internship at the Development Department of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, he started his professional career at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam as an organizer of public events, ranging from lectures and workshops to studio visits and international excursions accompanying groundbreaking exhibitions such as Unpacking Europe, with Anri Sala and Isaac Julien a.o.
During this time he also organised the much debated McMuseum symposium about the future of museums in times of globalisation and commercialisation, with Chris Dercon and Rem Koolhaas as keynote speakers. A year later he was asked to be part of the Dutch Pavilion entry for the Biennale of Venice, becoming responsible for the communication and public programmes. After this he developed the first edition of the international visitors’ programme of the contemporary art fair Art Rotterdam, existing of a series of in-depth events with contributions by foreign curators and arts journalists.
In recent years he has been working as an advisor with LAgroup for numerous cultural institutions, from the Van Gogh Museum, the Hermitage Amsterdam and Dr. Anton Philipszaal and Lucent Danstheater in The Hague and the Street of Sculptures, a large scale public art project in Amsterdam’s most multicultural borough the Bijlmer. At LAgroup he has broadened his scope and gained valuable experience by working on a wide variety of projects from urban planning to new media, ranging from development strategies for Amsterdam’s Central Station area and Red Light District (De Wallen) and Antwerp’s waterfront to online strategies for the Netherlands Philharmonic Orchestra and the Luxor Theater in Rotterdam.
He is a member of several cultural (advisory) boards, amongst which the Amsterdam Foundation for the Arts (AFK) and the Netherlands Media Arts Institute/Montevideo and the Advisory Board of the Nieuwe Kerk Foundation in Amsterdam. He is a frequent speaker at national and international seminars and conferences, and writes about art and heritage on a regular basis. In 2008, he founded Non-fiction with Juha van ‘t Zelfde.
Juha van ‘t Zelfde
From an early age, Juha van ‘t Zelfde (1979) combined an interest in new forms of music and new developments in information technologies. In Rotterdam, where he studied economics and law at the Erasmus University, he started organising independent music events and DJing experimental electronica at new and temporary cultural sites like .off_corso, Locus 010 and Het Wilde Weten. In 2002 he met Michiel van Iersel at Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, and the two started collaborating, joining various nodes of the artistic web of the city post-European-Capital-year. In 2003 and 2004, he contributed to the Rotterdam Museumnight in Boijmans. At the same time, he became board member of Entrée, the Junior Associates of the Concertgebouw and Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Here he organised the symposium The Future of Classical Music, that earned him an invitation to another symposium, Goodbye 20th Century, organised by the London Sinfonietta at Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival.
In the end of 2005 he started as project manager for the Amsterdam museum non-profit n8, responsible for the annual Amsterdam Museumnight. Here he worked together with more than 40 museums, Amsterdam’s universities, clubs, artists, musicians, designers and other creative individuals and organisations, with the intention to open up museums and create new collaborations and connections between new and young audiences and heritage institutions. He was invited to the annual Museums & the Web conference to talk about their model, and initiated the Open Museum marathon at PICNIC ‘08.
From 2005 onwards, he has organised countless experimental music concerts for Lantaren/Venster, Bimhuis, Energetica, Oude Kerk, Stedelijk Museum, Artis Planetarium, 11, Melkweg, TrouwAmsterdam and De Verdieping, and performed as DJ of experimental bass music around the world, in cities as San Francisco, London and Novi Sad. He has worked with artists as Kode9 & the Spaceape, Squarepusher, Hudson Mohawke, Flying Lotus, Oren Ambarchi, Pierre Bastien, Machinefabriek, Icarus, Furt, Keith Rowe, Knalpot, Rhythm & Sound, the Bug, Joker, Vladislav Delay, Philip Jeck, Jacob Kirkegaard, Fennesz, Thomas Ankersmit, Tom Arthurs, Lothar Ohlmeier, Rustie, Mala, Loefah, Skream, Dimlite, Aardvarck, Mike Slott and many more. Together with Dutch producer, DJ and Beat Dimensions protagonist Cinnaman (Yuri Boselie) he has founded Viral Radio, a music vehicle for the dissemination of beat-driven electronic music. Together they present a radio show on Dutch public network VPRO 3voor12, and host a monthly club event at TrouwAmsterdam. Time Out Amsterdam labeled it “the most cutting-edge event in Amsterdam, hands down.”
He is a board member of Binger Filmlab, an Amsterdam based international post academic feature-film development centre, an editor of Soundmuseum, an online museum for sound art, and co-founder of VURB, a European framework for policy and design research concerning urban computational systems. In 2008, he founded Non-fiction with Michiel van Iersel.