Over the past five years, Chris Keulemans and his team, partners and neighbours have been developing Tolhuistuin, a sprawling new arts centre on the wrong side of the river – in Amsterdam Noord. Keulemans has never felt more at home than here, where arts, poverty, survival and gentrification mix and collide.

Before moving to Amsterdam Noord, Keulemans was a traveling writer, fascinated about the power of art after crisis, in cities like Sarajevo, Beirut, Jakarta, New Orleans and Algiers.
During the nineties, he was director of De Balie, centre for arts and politics in Amsterdam. He published six books of fiction and non-fiction, and newspaper or magazine articles about cinema, football, theatre, refugees, war and cities.