A recap of the Ahreum Lees workshop "In the name of the moon" written by Marsha van Leersum. For three days we joined forces to reflect, imagine and design e-textile pieces to help us fight against micro aggressions. 

, Sickhouse became a nesting ground of heroes and guardians fighting against the power of microaggression. Artist Ahreum Lee (She/her) hosted a three-part workshop in which a group of participants developed weapons from E-textiles and recycled materials to articulate, uncloak and explore the theme of microaggressions.

When I first came across this workshop, my curiosity was sparked by the idea that fighting microaggressions can be kindled and transformed through creative resistance. Combining both technology and social injustices, I was intrigued to understand how a “weapon” could be built to defend against microaggressions. How can these subtle yet often unintentional slights and comments to be shaped into moments of awareness and connection rather than conflict?

Before diving into the forging of the heroes and guardians against microaggression:
What actually defines a microaggression? The term describes subtle, unintentional, yet discriminatory insults targeted at marginalized groups. They can apply to gender, sexuality, culture, religion, or disability. They come from implicit biases and appear on a daily basis, but it’s not explicitly meant as an insult. Making it a “micro” aggression is the quantity of “small” comments and its repetitiveness laying the foundation of the hurt. If 9 out of 10 comments regard people applying the same reaction or comment, it reinforces a bias. Even if the comment isn’t directly about you - isn’t meant to hurt you - you are affected by it.

“

The workshop series was cut into two parts. The first part was a two-day workshop on the 11th and 12th of July, and the second part on the 25th of July. At the first workshop, we started off sharing the meaning and lived experience of microaggressions. Following up, building a wearable sound device created from the lived experience of the participants.

The first day, the group was asked to explore and discuss our understandings and experiences regarding microaggressions. Laying the basis of our heroes’ origins.
Working in groups of four, we collectively shared microaggressions our loved ones and we face in our daily lives. Some stories were about daily comments at work. Feeling silenced by the judgement of coworkers. Others were grounded in the anxiety of wondering if choices of sportswear would make someone a target of violence in public space.

The microaggression I shared was the routine of misgendering. When - in passing conversation- I explain or correct a person my preferred pronounce, I am often met by comments regarding “not looking the part” (applying a stereotype on what non-binary should present as) or “I’ll do it wrong next time anyway. This they/them stuff I have wrong all the time.” I carry no anger regarding accidentally being misgendered. In the moment, I mostly agree with them kindly. I understand it is hard to change vocabulary, as for most people it is a new reality we all deal with in our own time. Yet, 

 is acknowledged in these continuous conversations?

After sharing our experiences and stories of feeling unheard or unsafe, we were invited to individually build a character from these conversations. Bringing a hero into life who embodies the struggle and allows us to reimage how resistance can look like – or rather 

Out of the soldering fumes and steaming piles of hot glue arose a hero.

In two days of slow awakening as circuit boards were connected and seams were sewn together, a device of resistance was forged.

A guardian carrying my internal frustration of unbalanced acknowledgement, a sparkle of irony, and a touch of comic relief. From a place of feeling unheard, “The Bulge” arose.

The Bulge was born wearing a clear message, a core I sometimes wish for. Calling: “Pronouns. They/them. That’s it. Shut up.”

The Bulge acknowledges and creates space as simply as it gets. Their superpower is a jockstrap activated by squeezing the ‘hog’. It looks quite radical in the way that it looks shocking or rather, provocative. The message to micro-aggressors is to take back space– grabbing the attention (literally).



On July 25th, the heroes were called back together. In a LARP (live action role play), we navigated through scenarios of microaggression. Entering the space as our heroes, loaded with our newly found resistance in our sound-equipped devices.



Fighting a world contaminated by microaggressions, the heroes’ individually crafted sounds and actions merged into one. Combining the powers of our own resistance and enforcing it with others. Harmonizing the hurtful sounds and buzzes of a fractured world into a collective field of sound. The guardians we created were not here to fight in the traditional sense, and our “weapons’ were not built for destruction. Instead, through our roles, we got to rethink our position toward the comments we endure. And we did not have to face it alone.



What I took away from the workshop is the ability to shift into a third-person position. That of a hero. From this position, I got to explore new modes of imagining and transforming the hurt and misunderstanding into moments of awareness and care. The workshop created space to hear each other, talk through our shared experiences, and from that point to think beyond it.
It wasn’t about just finding solutions to ‘fix’ the problems microaggression brings to the table. We got to reposition ourselves to remain aware that these injustices happen, but that we can create the agency to resist them. And this time with the power of creativity and play.

With love,

Marsha “the Bulge”
Pronouns.
They/Them.
That’s it.
Shut up.


In the Echo of the Moon

The playful game maker meet-up from the east of the Netherlands has been active for more than three years. Initiated at the old Sickhouse, the event went went nomadic for more than a year. On February 2026, Sickhouse opened its doors at a new location and found a new format! Read in this article all about the theme, games and makers who participated this half year !

“One day we will be 20 people sitting here!”

 said Marie Janin to an audience of no more than eight people (counting speakers and organizers) at one of the first 


COLLIDERS has been happening almost every month since 2023, featuring talks from artists and makers, games selected by the team and open screens for prototypes of local makers. The meet-up invited visitors to explore and share the richness of playful media. Month after month the audience has been growing, bringing together all kinds of game enthusiasts and slowly forming a solid community.

After hearing the news that Sickhouse needed to 

move from its former location at Stationsplein

, COLLIDERS and the other programs of Sickhouse became nomad. Thanks to the support of other cultural institutions like the 

 we were able to keep the meet-up going. Together we played, reflected and dreamt about having our own venue where we could meet more than once a month. After a long journey full of challenges and nightmares about 

, the new Sickhouse space became a reality, opening its doors in February 2026.




With the new space ready, Enschede finally had back a dedicated space for playful art. To celebrate that milestone, the first COLLIDERS at the new location, was themed around the topic of 

. We inaugurated the CINEMA hosting two talks from fellow hosts of playful art: Roque based in Spain and Krish based in Amsterdam. Roque told us about his project 

 on curating exhibitions about the hidden layers of games, connecting it to how he experienced the Overkill Festival back in 2024. Krish, co-organizer of the 

, was also present at the big screen, in this case, as the developer of ‘

‘. The game is based on his personal experience of finding an apartment to rent in Amsterdam, presented in an interactive comic-like visual novel. The game, available to play for visitors for the upcoming month, was among other games connected to the topic of building home. We 

reflected on finding ground when moving abroad

discarded our dreams of home ownership and became a house flying around, meeting eligible structures and romancing them


During March, we participated in the celebration of International Women’s Day together with 

. The energy we got during those celebrations impulsed us to invite female and non-binary friends in the video game scene to recommend us some 

 to be featured in the COLLIDERS of April. The games made us 

walk through the stories of women living under Islamic law in Iran

navigate the midlife crisis of a woman called Hanna

experience the small yet significant struggles we all feel

Zeynep Burcu, in addition to recommending us some games to play, also gave a short presentation about the initiative 

. The initiative is involved in projects, such as the Women Only Game Jam, or in creating an inclusive 3D asset library for everyone to use, named the 

 and how they can make the process of game development more accessible. Toni Cantino (astoryinpieces), the second speaker, built on that by sharing how they make games using 

, an open source tool that allow users to create games for the Game Boy through a drag and drop interface. We already played one of the games from Toni, 

 exhibition. However, we wanted other works from them to also be part of this COLLIDERS. In two game boys, connected with a flash-light, we had 

 and the demo of the upcoming horror game of Toni, as well as 

, made by PlatinaXO, a friend of theirs and fellow GB Studio maker.


Inspired by the talks from Burcu and Toni, the 

we decided to theme the COLLIDERS of May on the topic of 

. We wanted to discover new tools, see what people were making with them and inspire the curious players to become makers. The evening started with a talk from Pixel, a local artist who showed us how they modded a keyboard to make an interactive video installation with Blender and Godot. This was followed with the talk of Chloé, who told us about their practice as a playful artist at 

 and its variants. Surely bitsy was the protagonist of the evening. 

, which doubles the resolution of the sprites), and 

, adding a new dimension to play with). Apart from bitsy, we played 

, and a re-imagination of the classic snake using recorders as game controllers, 


To warm up for the opening of Josefin Arnell’s solo exhibition, 

 we started looking into games that would fit the themes she would be presenting. The first game we picked was 

, due to its cinematic setting and the way it confronts us with the bizarreness of modern society. From there, we collected more games to play in June that expose the grey areas of what does it mean to be 

. Those game included topics, such as the mechanisms of hierarchical societies, safety, control and surveillance during crisis, alcoholism disguised by cultural heritage, and transgender struggles with toilets. 

To dive deeper into these topics, we had two talks, one online from Matěj Hložánek and another in-person from Alexandria (Lexie). Matěj from the collective Herdek, told us about how they portrayed the Czech drinking culture in their game Prši. He also told us about the independent Czech game making scene and introduced us to the 

 festival, exactly the type of game festivals we like, which will happen in October. In her turn, Alexandria shared practices for making your own digital tools and how to publish them in open-source and modifiable ways. For her “

being a 'good citizen' in the digital arts entails being generous with your work and knowledge, and she believes that explicitly welcoming people into modding practices helps further that goal.”

 Being interested in tool-making, she created 

, a playful visual novel-making web-toolbox, which was a refreshing view on how to exist in the internet. Great inspiration for those, who join the 


At one of those coding evenings, we met with Thomas van den Brink, who had published his own role-play adventure. We invited him to tell us more about the process of writing such stories at the last Colliders before the summer break. This edition was happening simultaneously with the Film Camp, so the theme was, you guessed it, 

. This was, by far, the most popular edition, bringing together around 30 participants. We tested the interactive installation of a group of students from the University of Twente before their showcase at 

 showed us his custom-made engine and a collection of games he has been developing over the past years. In addition, regular visitors brought improved prototypes of their games. Alongside with the open screens, we had a curated a collection of games that explored the blend between filmmaking and game development. There was a game from an 

animation filmmaker exploring the narrative elements of the game loop

horror-puzzle game that inspired a recently released movie

experimental game continuing the story of a series of shortfilms with heavy inspiration in game aesthetics

short typing game with special attention to photography


Thanks to having our new space, we were able to slowly strengthen the community of game makers and playful artist of the east of the Netherlands. This first set of COLLIDERS at the new location helped to grow our community, bringing together every month even a bit more participants than those 20 people we initially hoped for ;). We have both regular visitors and curious ones that drop from time to time. It is incredibly inspiring to see all those people being interested in games and hear the stories behind their development. We are very grateful for our dedicated playful community - thank you to everyone, who joined us! We are looking forward to the upcoming meetups and curious to see what you will be developing in the future. 

Colliders! The playful meet-ups are back in town

Before sickhouse started to be sickhouse we were organizing small cinematic screenings ( once a month or so ) of films related to our The Overkill Festival in a part of the back then old and abandoned hospital ( Ariensplein ). It was almost exactly as creepy as it sounds. An old inhouse Chappel , an empty morgue and so much horror film potentital.

It was hard to find sickhouse in this gigantic building but very easy to get lost in the maze that this place was. 

The films we were showing had a limited license , meaning we could show them but not promote them .. so we made up funky posters that people had to decypher to find out what that month film would be.

The old website is still online with our posters , 

A while back...

As we continue our monster mondays saga , a side quest has emerged ! From Hertjan’s passion to make black&white , collage posters of the movies that we are showing , A pre-film painting / drawing club has sprung to live ! Come by every monday from 19.30 to 20.00 to draw, drink & talk. 

Monday Monster Painting club

Sickhouse is presenting: Movie Monster Monday Mash

At Sickhouse we invent new programs every other day. Spontaneous talks at the bar can lead to a new initiatives that sometimes last for years. The Overkill Festival itself was invented when two members of our team got together, wanting to play retro videogames for a full weekend.

That’s how, after a few drinks, HertJan & Haaike came with the idea of the MonsterMovieMondays. And from now on, we watch a classic monster movie every Monday from 20.00 to 22.00.

We believe it’s important to look back at the classics and rediscover why these films have inspired many generations of filmmakers and, ultimately, let them to become cultural phenomena.

For our first edition, we showed the 1954 Gojira ( Godzilla ). The first one of about 30 films we’ll watch (many of them kind of crazy) dedicated to wild monsters.

Gozzilla is however, much less a monster movie and much more a depiction of the horrors following the atomic bomb. We fucked with nature, now nature is coming back to fucked with us. This is clear to everyone in the film. It's humanity’s fault: the constant testing of underwater bombs must have awoken the beast.

We don’t actually see the monster that often, and when it does show up, it looks kind of silly, but of course, we are scared of this gigantic fire-breathing dinosaur, who wouldn’t be? BUT perhaps people’s crazy idea to invent even more terrifying new means of mass destruction to deal with nature is far more scary than any monster and, as usual, it won’t solve the problem. Godzilla is still alive and kicking today, with an insane number of nuclear mutants to fight against… 

MonsterMashMondayMayhem

Cinema Obscura is our once a month filmprogram, curated in relation to our festival theme “Dream No Return”. With 10 + screenings over the year, we are looking how various filmmakers approached the notion of dreaming and its multiple possibilities to translate it to the screen.

Cinema Obscura is our once a month filmprogram, curated in relation to our festival theme “

. With 10 + screenings over the year, we are looking how various filmmakers approached the notion of dreaming and its multiple possibilities to translate it to the screen.

Cinema Obscura nights are meant to be moment where we watch movies together in an immersive set-up supported by a side program. Our intention is to stimulate reactions, discussions, ideas to reflect together on “

”. Participation is encouraged and new references or ideas for following screenings are also welcome. Don’t hesitate to share your dreams, your strangest film taste or your creative skills!

With our first Screening we showed the movie 

 from Jean-Pierre Jeunet et Marc Caro from 1995. In a dystopian future Dr. Krank, unable to dream himself, is kidnapping young children to steal their dreams. Angelo Badalamenti (also known for Twin Peaks) made the music of the film.  The film was released 4 years before The Matrix and we all felt there was strong  connections between the two world through the cyberpunk vibe, in the brain connectors designs and in the digital vision grafted onto the blind characters. 
More than the story, the strange atmosphere and the blurriness of the spaces, very close and very far at the same time, is what interested us most in relation to dream worlds.

Before the screening we hosted a crafting activity, asking the visitors to create their own “brain connectors”. These devices that we could wear during the projection, would connect our consciousness with one another. While in the cinema we joined our brain connectors and Marie hosted a small collective nightmare seance. The intention was to come together in an imagined world and let prompts guide us in the dark… If most of the time we dream alone, a point of attention this year for Sickhouse is looking into collective ways to navigate liminal world in dreaming states. After the 

 hosted by Jana Romanova, the exhibition “

” from Sondi in the corridor of the Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Cinema Obscura nights want to open the chapters of our nightmares…

Cinema Obscura wants to be a collective experience. It is not only about the screen, it is about the specific people with us in the room watching, reacting, feeling for the character of these world. After the film a part of the visitors shared their feeling connected with their device! 

We look forward to welcoming you to the next experience!

Articles

In the Echo of the Moon

Colliders! The playful meet-ups are back in town

A while back...

Monday Monster Painting club

MonsterMashMondayMayhem

About Cinema Obscura "The City Of the Lost Children"