Junk Space: Claiming Public Spaces

STRAAT and Museum MORE present Junk Space: Claiming Public Spaces, an exhibition that explores how artists see, interpret and reclaim the environments that surround us. From streets and buildings to shopping centres, infrastructure and forgotten corners, the exhibition looks at the everyday spaces that shape our experience of the city.

The exhibition takes its starting point from architect and theorist Rem Koolhaas’s concept of 'Junkspace', which describes the fragmented, anonymous and constantly changing environments produced by modernisation. Shaped by construction, consumption, infrastructure and movement, these spaces often go unnoticed in our daily lives. Yet they can also become places of identity, expression and possibility.

The exhibition Junk Space: Claiming Public Spaces will be on view at STRAAT from Saturday, November 7, through Sunday, February 28, and can be visited with a regular museum admission.

Junk Space: Claiming Public Spaces is a collaboration between STRAAT Museum and Museum MORE in Gorssel, the Netherlands’ largest museum dedicated to modern realism. A parallel exhibition is presented at Museum MORE, with both exhibitions curated by Sito Rozema.

Museum MORE Gorssel
Junk Space. The Ugliest Places in the Finest Art
MORE Gorssel
November 7, 2026 – February 28, 2027

Featured artists at both exhibitions
Mattijs van den Bosch, Stijn ter Braak, Casper Braat, Jan Dirk van der Burg, Frans Clement, Jonat Deelstra, Richard Estes, Annelies Gommer, Aaron Harris, Thijs Jansen, Steffen Kern, Arnout Killian, Carla Klein, Florens Kool, Romina Koopman, Ben van Lieshout, Mark Lisser, Bas Losekoot, Michael Mau, Jans Muskee, Satijn Panyigay, Clément Poplineau, Anna Reerds, Stijn Rietman, Machteld Schoep, Sender, Sick Society, Elvira Smit, Lisette Stuifzand, Maurice van Tellingen, Dennis Teunissen, Ben Thomas, Koen Vermeule, Sam Oswin Vonk, Rogier Wagenvoort, Rudiger Wasser, Siet Zuyderland.

Thanks to
Centraal Museum, Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, Dutch Graffiti Library, Museum Amersfoort, ING Collectie, Ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken, Erasmus MC, Project 2.0 / Gallery, Brandt Gallery, Galerie Caroline O’Breen, Borzo Gallery, Annet Gelink Gallery, Gallery van Fanny Freytag, Collectie Van ’t Hof – Van den Brink, Poort Visser Collectie, Laurent Germain, the artists and all lenders (of items in loan) that wish to remain anonymous.

Book
This exhibition is accompanied by a richly illustrated catalog, published by WBooks, containing essays by Sito Rozema (curator, Museum MORE), Petra Brouwer (architectural historian, Universiteit van Amsterdam) and Alex Pope (educator, STRAAT Museum).