THE ARTS BOARD FOR CARDBOARD

📺 Cardboarders on Het Klokhuis! 📦

Very proud to share that Cardboarders are featured in a Het Klokhuis episode 💥📦 . In the episode, I talk with the host about how we create conditions for true play. As Cardboarders we always support imagination, making, material curiosity, and collective exploration. Cardboard is our medium but also our method: accessible, open-ended, and very invitational. After the show there is a little workshop with Michaël Veerman to help kids get started working on their cardboard character automatons!

Huge thanks to all the old and new Cardboarders who joined us for this very condensed (and very cute) version of one of our workshops.

More documentation to come: especially the costumes. So many costumes, so little Klokhuis episode time…

Check it here! hetklokhuis.nl

With: Astrid van der Velde, Edo Sutherland, Edo Sutherland, Jeroen Funke, Bonne Steinz, Damian van Soest, Florine Dotman, Myrthe ter Linden, Roloff de Jeu, Avi Krispin, Janneke Stegink, Eva Stegink, Lizzy, Albert Kannemans, Isa, Oli, Sumi, Nika, Judith van der Perk, Mirthe Mosselman, Anne Kloosterhuis en wie ik per ongeluk vergeet!

January 6, 2026

Animated Protest Signs

Kaboom animation festival’s theme was provocation. We decided to play with the idea of digital vs. analogue. The protest sign is a beautiful expression: a physical representation of your opinion with cardboard, paint and glue! We love and feel connected to this analogue rebelliousness in a world obsessed with digital things.

So! A great opportunity to make performative protest signs. By animating the signs themselves, we play with the idea that messages need movement—literal, visual, emotional—to be felt. The signs become looping GIFs in real space.

These signs were used during the festival opening in Utrecht. A wandering procession carried signs that flipped, flapped, rotated, revealed hidden and ambiguous messages.

After the opening, the signs were exhibited on-site, inviting visitors to check their mechanics and read the slogans up close.

made by michael veerman, mathijs stegink and sjors knol

December 1, 2025

Playgrounds Festival- The Art Department Eindhoven

Playgrounds is the festival for artists and designers in the animation / visual effects / illustration industry (and everyone else who loves to watch, make, or play with moving images). We created a large scale 3d character creation arena. It was an honour to create a playground for the visitors that we idolize! Mikey Please, Dan Ojari and Patrick McHale from over the Garden Wall fame for example… Before the festival started we did a workshop and exhibition for the Dutch Game Week with students from the Master of Art in Animation at St. Joost Academy.

with Mathijs Stegink, Michael Veerman, Astrid van der Velde, Sjors Knol, Anne Kloosterhuis, Roloff De Jeu

November 26, 2025

Cardboard instruments for leader of Podium Klassiek

We worked together with director and filmmaker Oskar Luijer on the leader for Podium Klassiek! We made some cubist inspired cardboard musical instruments. This is a fragment from one of the first versions that we really love!

November 25, 2025

EMOJI OMAJI – mediamuseum Beeld en Geluid

For Mediamuseum Beeld en Geluid sound we made a experiential project / game. During the days of the My First Smartphone Festival. Emoji Omaji was active.

Emoji Omaji is a participatory performance-installation about care, miscommunication, and the strange poetry of emoji culture.

Visitors encounter a grandma in the distance behind glass (like a tamagotchi: an elderly woman sitting behind a window, high above the audience, surrounded by her cozy props — schommelstoel, geraniums, cookie tin, and a schoolboard. You can only communicate with her in emoji. She points at what she needs: Play. Food. Care. Attention.

Players respond by building small emoji-rebuses from printed icons. They hold their creations up; Grandma studies them through her binoculars and writes her interpretation on the board.

If they match, she rewards the players with a thumbs-up, a little dance, and a heart. If not, she grumbles and removes a heart. When Grandma loses all hearts, she must be “reset” — pure Tamagotchi nostalgia.

Emoji Omaji transforms digital pictograms into study of misunderstanding, generational gaps, and how we try to care for each other with limited tools. The audience co-creates it.

A tiny intergenerational soap opera game behind glass.

A project by Mathijs Stegink and Michael Veerman, grandma Kameliya Markovska and the volunteers of the mediamuseum. Many thanks to: Arjen Pas.

November 25, 2025

Waiting (Bahnhof 119)

We were invited by the KunstBaustelle to create an exhibiton in train station Geltendorf. We designed and constructed a large-scale cardboard scenography.

The project explored the experience ofWaiting . We positioned it as the inverse of the “hero’s journey”. We invited local participants and audience for a workshopseries, to engage with stillness, and self-perception rather than action and progression.

The exhibition was made during COVID and we worked in a trainstation near a refugee camp, this made the waiting theme even more urgent.

With the participants we developed scenes, sculptures, collage and photography. The result a public walk-through exhibition, open to the public for three weeks. Many people waiting for their next train visited the exhibition!

Team:
Mathijs Stegink & Sjors Knol – Lead artists and guiding the creative process, designing the cardboard installations, and overseeing the sculptural and performative elements.

Wolfgang Hauck – Project lead supporting overall coordination and integration.

Renate Stoiber – expertise in costume and stage design, workshopleader

Barbara Helleis – Logistics and general support

November 11, 2025

Analogue Reality Polytech festival Moscow

We we’re invited to create a project for the Polytech festival by our friend from Cardboardia Sergej Korsakov. We wanted to explore the analog underside of digital life through site-specific workshops, building automata and mechanical cardboard games inspired by digital apps and VR glasses. The participants were invited to reflect on the alienation from the material world and eachother throught our modern devices. The project became a playful critique on the promise of our social media and technology as substitutes of contact with materials and each other in the real world. We created all sorts of analogue versions of digital apps and phenomena during the week from games to facetime to tamagotchi to the animated loading icons and gifs on our screens, but reimagined as automata. In the weekend thousands of visitors could try all the cardboard automata and play the cardboard games.

November 11, 2025

Being at Home: Animated Magazine

For the Kaboom! Animation festival, we created a live printed, collaborative magazine that is also an animation! Co-created on site with hand-stenciled pages (on vintage mineographs). Over the festival days, the theme “Being at home” was explored through collaborative illustration and animation (by 20 talented HKU students). Using interviews between audience and creators. This was a collaboration of Mathijs Stegink: artistic lead, Erwin Blok: the Gestetner King, Damian van Soest: the Lay Out and Illustration King

For: HKU / Kaboom Animation Festival / Utrecht Library .

November 8, 2025

Rotterdam Illustration Festival

We created a collaborative animation at Rotterdam Illustration Festival in Roodkapje! With support from @copic_official. Such luxury to work with real good paper and markers. Thanks to all the participants! So much talent and so many good vibes! Invited by rotterdams ultimate illustration spider in the web: Rachel Sender and with lots of help from the best team ever: Damian van Soest, Cox Janssens and Sjors Knol!

November 6, 2025

Defqon 2024

One of the more spectacular years at Defqon! Lot’s of mechanical cardboard, robots and another great team: Mathijs Stegink, Astrid van der Velde, Michael Veerman, Jeroen Funke, Sjors Knol, Melissa Schippers, Florine Dotman, Mark van der Heide, Zinzi Angel en Jip van Alem

November 5, 2025

Bamboebios @ Wildeburg

Wildeburg asked if we could bring their festival cinema back to life.
So we did, completely. We create a cinema, open 24/7, hidden on our own island in the bamboo forest, where reality gets as wobbly as the forrest floor.

The BamboeBios is constantly shapeshifting. One moment it’s a heartfelt late-night cinema, the next it’s a chaotic clown-run gameshow where someone is rapping an interpretive dance to a PowerPoint about Hildegard von Bingen and mud.

It’s a mix of: ungoogleable animation gems (in collaboration with Kaboom animation festival and Close-up film festival), improvised hosting and live music, audience-driven games, friendship rituals, live-tripdrawing sessions and cinema-as-playground experiments.

Everything is oriented toward unstranging the people around you. Because we’ve learned—through cardboard cities, guerrilla newspapers, and years of participatory mischief—that the real magic of a festival isn’t the stage or the dj’s. It’s the moment a stranger becomes a co-conspirator.
Collaborating in creating your mutual future story.

In 2019 we created a festival wide scavenger hunt game for people to find new members for their friendgroups!

Collaborators:
Mathijs Stegink, Anne Kloosterhuis, Sjors Knol, Astrid Van der Velde, Damian van Soest, Noor Kloosterhuis, Peter van Drie, Bonne Steinz, Dre Schrijver, Riccardo Canciello, Amber Rahantoknam, Florine Dotman, Edo Sutherland, Josephine Beijer, Anna van der Veen, Mirte Mosselman, Krista Weissman, Kika, Jane Bergkotte,, Nino Maissouradze, Esmee van Liere, Maxi Meissner , Nina van Stokkum, Luc Loois, Annemiek Timmerman, Robyn Eikemans, Jasper Segers, Mila Philipsen, Veerle Supheert

November 4, 2025

Wildeburger Courant 2019

Wildeburg’s 4th! This year we hit a home run with the festival newspaper we made on the festival with the visitors. A lot of the kinks in our first year workflow disappeared and there was a lot more attention to readability 🙂 Besides that we had some great printpartys at night. Many amazing illustrators and writers of last year returned and blend perfectly with the new ones! We are looking for bigger venues to do this… So if you are with a big festival and want to get REAL… hook us up 🙂

Best team ever:
Mathijs Stegink, Erwin Blok, Timo Kragting, Edo Sutherland, Jeroen Funke, Lae Schäfer, Nina Maissouradze, Damian van Soest, Lot van Teylingen , Laura Kleinhans, Raoul Wilke, Ron Sdıǝɹıuƃs, Simon Uyterlinde, Ervin Poot, Andreas Schrijvers, Jasmijn de Lange, Jerry Houtman, Sigi Foppen! And of course: Sam, Dirk Tuizenga en Maurice van der Berkt en Paul Niezen. And all the people that randomly helped out printing, drawing, folding and spreading!

August 27, 2019

Live Mobile Lightpaint Animation Studio

#LIT Mobile Lightpainting Animation Studio!

How it works:
This is a mobile workshop that works well in public spaces. It consists a large (55 inch) LED screen, camera and computer mounted on a bike. The way people interact with it is rather layered. There is the studio as a mobile live visuals installation on the festival. Then there is two layers of participation: people can be models and lightpaintartists. And then there is, for the 9 At first they just see the sequence of earlier images on the moving screen. Then they are being photographed, they get direct feedback on the screen. Then they start to understand what we are doing in front and behind them with the lightpainting/long shutter speed. Because we take a lot of pictures they become a sequence (like a gif).
Because the screen is bright and big the participants can film their own sequences with their phones.

After people understand what we are doing they start to try it them selves. Lightpainting and animation go really well together. The realtime feedback gives people a great reason to PLAY (and to look at them selves). Mixing that with time-lapse, possible because the studio is mobile, produces great results! The background visuals can be adjusted (logo’s etc.) and it’s possible to work in a theme.

We make a little montage afterwards of all the images! That is finished the day after.

Technical: We are working from batteries so we are free to move everywhere. We have batteries to work for 6 hours. We are sort off waterproof but it’s hard to do the workshop if there is real rain! A tent or roof then comes in very handy. We are 2,5m high. We come with three people, a rental bus and we need a storage space in the vicinity to charge the batteries 🙂

Best Team Ever:
Mathijs Stegink
Astrid van der Velde
Edo Sutherland
Damian van Soest

August 26, 2019

Defqon1: Hardstyle? Cardstyle!

Our 5th year at Defqon1! The heat was on, literally. The glue melted before we could turn the glueguns on. What a giant party with a lot of familiar faces! We feel like we are a real part of the festival! Big round of cardboard for the best team ever: Astrid van der Velde, Jeroen Funke, Edo Sutherland, Anne Wiertz, Florine Dotman, Maria Mombers, Shannon Pronk, Charles Mensagh, Michael Veerman and Mathijs Stegink!

Want to get expressive during your festival? We can help you make people make! YEAH SURE! TELL ME MORE!

July 4, 2019

Mutant Toys Workshop – @Toyland Halloween party

During the Toyland Party by Halloween Spook we created this movie from the results of the Mutant Toy Workshop! The beautiful dressed up visitors could join by creating a mutant toy monster made of recycled toys. After that they acted together with the monster in this classic b-movie we we’re creating on the spot! Greenscreen for the win! This all took place in Tolhuistuin Paradiso in Amsterdam.

We have lots of experience in making people make! OH YEAH? TELL ME MORE!

April 3, 2019

We will sock you at Lowlands!

During the Lowlands Festival we made more than 8000 sockpuppets! These puppets came to live in all the different sets in our venue! Many thanks to all participants and all workshopleaders, puppeteers and the Lowlands crew! We made also a big party each evening of the festival. And some specials: a create your own dancepartner battle and a create and train your own aliendog match!

A sockpuppet is the perfect size for people on festivals. Visitors make all sorts of characters, sometimes based on people in real life, sometimes an ideal version of them selves, sometimes of the musicians on the festival. We try to engage people in playing with the puppets and giving them a life by providing them with sockpuppet passports 🙂

Do you want people to sock at your party?

We will sock you! YEAH TELL ME MORE!

April 2, 2019

We will sock you at Smeerboel Festival!

At Smeerboel Festival! We brought our improved sets for the sockpuppetsweatshop: the sockpuppet wrestling area has now a pimpy look and the micro playback sjo is equiped with a smoke machine 🙂 We really have a hang of this workshop now and it is ready to travel! Of course we also brought all sorts of costumes and puppets we are already working on ourselves!

A sockpuppet is the perfect size for people on festivals. Visitors make all sorts of characters, sometimes based on people in real life, sometimes an ideal version of them selves, sometimes of the musicians on the festival. We try to engage people in playing with the puppets and giving them a life by providing them with sockpuppet passports 🙂

Do you want people to sock at your party?

We will sock you! HELL YEAH TELL ME MORE!

March 27, 2019

Wildeburger Courant Live Festival Printshop!

At the Wildeburg Festival we created a festival newspaper with the visitors of the festival! Writing, drawing, printing, folding the 5 zines we made in 3 days. Total copies: 15000! Printed on the vintage gestetner mimeographs of Erwin Blok! No computers we’re used excerpt for playing music!

We came with the best team ever, writers, printers, illustrators, artists! Mathijs Stegink, Timo Kragting, Erwin Blok, Edo Sutherland, Jeroen Funke, Talitha Dijkhuizen, Laura Kleinhans, Damian van Soest, Bas De Geus, Nina Maissouradze, Lot van Teylingen, Lae Schafer, Max Terpstra, Jane Bergkotte en natuurlijk vanuit Wildeburg, Maurice van der Berkt, Paul Niessen, Dirk Tuizenga, Siep Stronks en iedereen die ik nu vergeet sorry.