Kunstjongeren is a new education initiative created by de Appel and The Beach, a community organisation based in Amsterdam Nieuw-West. Extending on de Appel’s renowned Curatorial Programme, a group of Amsterdammers (14 to 18 years old) experiment with different forms of presentation and discover what curating means to them.

With this initiative we want to learn from and listen to young people's stories and support them to tell their story with the artworks and artists they consider important. Questions such as: why do we collect certain objects? What do we find important in society? How do museums collect and show art? are central questions in the programme.

In this process the group of young people formulate their own questions and the themes they want to research, but also which museums they prefer to visit. The participants of the Kunstjongeren collectively visit museum collections and artist studios to think about different forms of presentation.

Since September 2020, a pilot version of the Kunstjongeren has been initiated to take the first steps towards a sustainable and recurring initiative. We did this together with a group of six young Amsterdammers - Bella Lachman, Kiera Kuitenbrouwer, Florian Boon, Manisha Singh, Wobbe Wiedijk and Hannah Sewell - during various sessions with their curatorial mentor Bas Hendrikx and the artists Farida Sedoc and Mirjam Linschooten. Together they have developed their own exhibition: The Inner Garden.