Afaina de Jong
Sonsbeek 2026
Park Sonsbeek, Arnhem
Inleiding
Future Untold (Onvertelde toekomst), 2026
A spatial thinker and maker, Afaina de Jong’s overlapping art, design, and architecture practice—AFARAI (est. 2005, Amsterdam)—deals with the city intersectionally and interdisciplinarily. Her work integrates theory and research with design as a feminist practice that encourages change and accommodates differences. De Jong looks to create space for voices and cultural knowledge outside what is typically manifest as visual, allowing for non-visual mediums to stay true to themselves within a spatial context. Her newly commissioned spatial installation focuses on untold memories around public space, especially those of women. Situated at the east entrance of the park, the structure’s three, open, inverted arches invite the park in. Inside the structure is a bench whose communal function is emphasized by its large scale and multiple seating positions. There is also a soundscape made up of speculative oral histories, comprising interviews with theorists and female residents that together gesture toward how one might define a more just space for anyone who identifies as a woman in the city. Drawing on De Jong’s own archives of queer and feminist imaginaries and local archives, the soundscape revolves around modes of knowledge production and sharing that are not always present in established archives yet are vital to remembrance. Within the work placemaking becomes a tool and the park the ground upon which memory can be reengineered as a collective act of imagining different futures.
Listen in the audiotour
About the artist
Afaina de Jong (b. 1977, Amsterdam) is an Amsterdam-based architect working at the intersection of art and architecture. With her studio AFARAI, founded in Amsterdam in 2005, she pushes the boundaries of traditional architecture by approaching the city as an intersectional and interdisciplinary whole. In doing so, she integrates theory and research with design as a feminist practice that stimulates change and creates space for difference. By using form as a language — through colours, patterns and stories often perceived as “the other” — she works towards a more inclusive spatial experience. De Jong is head of the master’s programme Contextual Design at Design Academy Eindhoven and has held teaching positions at, among others, the Faculty of Architecture at TU Delft; the Sandberg Instituut, Amsterdam; Columbia University GSAPP, New York; KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm; and the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence. Her design research project The Multiplicity of Other was commissioned in 2021 for the Dutch Pavilion at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice. Her design initiative The Embodied Restoration Lab, focused on AI, feminism and architecture, was part of the 19th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice in 2025.
Afaina de Jong would like to thank Innavisions for the impeccable music selection; Soepel Projecten BV for their input and for creating the work; and the Contextual Design students at the Design Academy in Eindhoven for lending a helping hand.
Commissioned by Sonsbeek 2026. Made possible in part by Sikkens Gelderse Poort, Arnhem.