This June, Writingplace invites you to a two-day exploration of the rich intersection between architecture, poetry, and place in Rotterdam. Bringing together authors, editors, architects, and poets, the event celebrates the launch of the first Writingplace Open Book: Poetics of Place, alongside a dynamic program of lectures, workshops, and discussions.
Day 1, June 5, 2026
Faculty of Architecture, Room B
The first day opens with a Writingplace Open Strategic Meeting, creating space for dialogue around editorial practices, peer review, funding, and open engagement with a welcome address by Klaske Havik and Angeliki Sioli, series editors and a short introduction to the Writingplace platform and its earlier publications. Participants will collaborate across panels and share insights into the evolving landscape of open publishing.
In the afternoon, the focus shifts to the books themselves:
Ways of Seeing. Visual Narratives, presentation by Susana Oliveira, Carlos Machado e Moura, Luis Santiago Baptista, and Onorina Botezat
(Hidden) Narrative of Resistance, presentation by Elina Alatalo and Dorina Pllumbi
Lecture & book proposal: Poetic Practices by Jeremy Alan Hawkins
Book launch: Poetics of Place, with a keynote lecture by Andrew Carr
Day 2, June 6, 2026
Verhalenhuis Belvedere & Lantaren Venster, Rotterdam
Day two expands into the city: Writing Workshop “Unguarded Rails” A hands-on, site-specific workshop exploring how poetry emerges from and reshapes public space. Participants will create short texts inspired by place, culminating in a collective poetry installation.
Evening Event: Writingplace x Poetry International, hosted at Poetry International, celebrates Poetics of Place through a series of conversations between poets and architects. Together, they reflect on how writing can reveal, shape, and reimagine spatial experience.
Angeliki Sioli will moderate an evening in which Jeremy Allan Hawkins will speak with architect Andrew Carr about the place of architecture in the work and life of Seamus Heaney, Vincent Cellucci will talk with architecture scholar Eline van Leeuwen on the subject of poetic writing in her research on psychiatric hospitals, and Klaske Havik will discuss perception and the evocative description of place with poet Erik Lindner.
This event has received financial support from Open Science NL. Download the program Writingplace meeting June5 program
