Sickhouse is re-opening in early 2026! :) After two years of nomadic programming, the question of physical space took a new meaning for the team, the artists and the community around Sickhouse. In a rapidly changing city like Enschede, with initiatives like 

, we realize that space is much more than a building, it’s political, social and cultural. Who has space? Who needs more space? What is a safe space? How do we relate to both physical and online spaces? And what does space mean?

This call is to invite an artist to reflect on and engage with these themes. We want to encourage the community to dream together about what space means to them, what they have, what they need, and what they can share.




We are looking for an artist whose playful practice involves community to critically engage with social challenges. From video games to role play, from rule setting to world building, from online channels to hybrid performances, we are looking for an artist able to collaborate with a local community in a reflection about space. The process, the collective sessions, the engagement of the people involved will be central to the project. You should be comfortable working with diverse communities and institutions and open to collaborating with others.

👉 

: December 7, 2025 11:00 PM CET (UTC/GMT +1)

Open Call- Residency (January to March 2026)

You’ve probably heard the fantastic news that we raised €38,338 to continue the renovation of our new location. Of course, we’re 

 with the results (almost literally), but of course, this is only one part of the muscle needed to make the new Sickhouse come alive.

Now that we’re back in the building, the real fun begins: we are tearing down old walls, removing insulation, reshaping rooms, and slowly giving form to the playful home we’ve been dreaming of.

We’re on-site every 

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday from 10:00 to 17:00

, kicking some dust and making some magic.
If you’re nearby, feel free to stop by, you might spot us on sanding, painting, or joyfully power-drilling. And if you...

 and get updates on what we’re working on each week.

New build coming up! 

We are over the moon because we did it!  We reached 

 and the love, messages, and enthusiasm we’ve received over the past weeks have been incredible. Thanks to our amazing, lovely and generous community (320 amazing supporters) we reached our crowdfunding goal of €30.000! 

And now we can finally continue with the transformation of our new location into a true home for 

 left until the end of the campaign. Which means there’s still time for anyone who wants to join this adventure, or grab one of our special rewards. Every extra euro helps us go beyond the basics and make the new Sickhouse even better.

Can we go over 100%? Let's see how far we can get! 

Thank you to all our supporters, from the bottom of our playful hearts: you make Sickhouse possible.

We made it! We reached 100%

We are overwhelmed with your support, thank you so much! Within two weeks we've already reached 50% of our target goal. That's incredible. Thank you again! And what lovely reactions you're leaving on our crowdfunding page, such as these ones, but plenty more:

"Sickhouse is the best. It’s the place to be yourself, to experiment and to grow as a person in the comfort and warmth of a community taking care and really seeing each other."

"Omdat een Enschede zonder Sickhouse niet klopt. Het is een belangrijke hub voor creatievelingen, nerds, nieuwsgierigen, gamers en zzp'ers. Sickhouse is ontzettend waardevol"

"I love you Sickhouse!! Can't wait to play cool games in this building!"


If you can't you wait to enter (y)our new space or you want to help even more, share the campaign with friends, family, neighbors and colleagues! We're on our way to 75%! Together we are giving Sickhouse a new home!


Cheers,
Sickhouse team [Marie, Aike, Pablo, Yari, Dagmar & Puck]

We are half way and so grateful for your support!

https://sickhouse.creativefunding.nl/project/crowdfunding



In the last two years, Sickhouse has had to relocate several times (sometimes right after our plans for the new building were finalized!) During this period, we’ve run our program at temporary locations from generous partners. Our strong and wonderful community 💜 has followed us through this challenging nomadic adventure, but we have really missed a home! This year, we have finally secured a permanent location, but we need your help to open its doors!

The discovery of asbestos in the building meant a huge setback. Paying for its removal drained our budget. Now that the asbestos is almost gone and we’re allowed back inside, we need your help to afford the much-needed renovations so we can open our doors at the beginning of 2026!


Through this campaign, we want to raise €30.000 to finish building our home. Your support will help us to:

: Installing new doors, isolating walls, and double glass so concerts, screenings and festivals can run without disturbing our neighbors.

and heating so we can welcome everyone in a safe environment.

creating suitable spaces for our artists in residency, a flexible stage that can host our many different events (live music, meet-ups, exhibitions), and a fun, safe, and welcoming public area for our community.

Every euro you donate brings us closer to opening our doors so we can host exhibitions, film screenings, concerts, game events, festivals, residencies, meet-ups and more all year long! We want Sickhouse to be a warm, flexible and safe space for a playful, adventurous, engaged and queer-friendly community. Will you help us build this space?

Our Crowdfunding is Running!

This week Shaman Garage is presenting their new project, 

, an arcade machine inspired by slot machines mixed with a post social media imaginary. This project is supported by Cross-Tic, Planetart and Sickhouse.



 is an installation that tricks its users to invest time in a simple yet addictive game. Through this altar, players worship a living imagery that demands frustration, competition, and obsession. It will keep you wanting to start over, never leaving the machine. Shaman garage invites us to “play” at doomscrolling. Is it fun? Using classical game mechanics “difficulty levels, frustrations and rewards” 

 highlights how these are very close to the ones used on social media platforms and how they become addictive. 

In this playful installation, Shaman Garage wanted to reflect on the context we understand social media, the narratives it generates and the behaviors it forces on us. While the arcade reproduces the addictive mechanics of money driven social media, fooling the players in mini feedback loops; it is also presented as an object of worship, revealing the internet folklore as a treasure from the past, a complex and fascinating mythology. 


Shaman garage conducted an archival exercise, realising that the memesphere needs careful hands to preserve its symbols, icons and narratives. 

“Memes privilege emotion and vitality over reason and accuracy; they reward the absurd and the exaggerated. This is precisely why we want to “rescue” them, to preserve their value.”


 was presented at GOGBOT from Thursday 17 to Sunday 21 September in the Oude Kerk (more info about GOGBOT on 

 will be part of the arcade corner of the new location of Sickhouse. Stay tuned for the reopening in beginning 2026!

LOOPSCROLL is a project by 

 . The arcade was created by Pablo San Gregorio, Ivan McGill, Pako Portalo and Yuxuan Zhao.
This project is possible thanks to 

A new arcade machine by Shaman Garage

We received the keys of our new location on Oldenzaalsestraat 128 last May and we were thrilled with the chance to build a permanent space that looks like us and feels like home. But soon we discover asbestos in the building and that meant a huge setback.

The clean up of the asbestos started during the summer and it should be finish over September. The half front of the building is now clean and we are able to restart the renovations of this part including the upstairs residency!

We are very eager to get back to work but it's true that this delay has had a huge impact on our programs: for the upcoming months we have to focus on getting the permit and continue with the renovations. This means that the rest of 2025 we will only host our monthly COLLIDERS meet-ups and our bi-weekly TableTop Nights, both at GrensFrequentie. Alas, the 2025 edition of the Overkill Festival will be postponed until 2026.

Of course all help is welcome! We will be sharing our planning soon to include the community in the renovation process. We will also launch a crowdfunding in October to help us with the last phase so we can open the doors of the new location in early 2026.

Join the adventure to reopen Sickhouse together 🩵

New Sickhouse = asbests free

On Saturday July 5th, seven amazing student teams from the 

Creative Media and Game Technologies (CMGT) 

course at Saxion presented their final projects — each inspired by this year’s Overkill Festival theme: Return to Dreamland!

Every year, we collaborate with CMGT to develop games based on the festival theme. At the end of the process, the Sickhouse team makes a special selection of standout projects — and the audience also gets to vote for their favorite, which will be featured during the festival!

Throughout the afternoon, visitors and fellow creators had the chance to 

, experiencing everything from puzzles and immersive narratives to experimental play styles and even alternative controllers. The creativity and quality this year were truly inspiring.

After playing, each team gave a presentation about their development process — sharing their concepts, challenges, and breakthroughs. It’s worth noting that these games were developed in just 

, making the results even more impressive.

It was no easy task to choose, but three projects stood out:


A 2D puzzle-platformer where players take on the roles of a girl and a spirit, navigating a dreamland shaped by personal anxieties. By restoring the lights, they work together to find a way to wake up.


Step into the dreams of siblings Emma and Kase, who find themselves in a surreal meadow filled with fear-encapsulating bubbles. Using handheld fans and help from friendly creatures, the goal is to merge the fears and let them go in one spectacular pop.

🔹 OOSOOM (Out of Sight, Out of Mind) – by Team EEEEE


A game about dreaming objects into existence. One player becomes a cat, the other a bird with a light in its beak. By using and hiding the light, the players guide each other through four dreamy sleep cycles.

OOSOOM was not only selected by the Sickhouse team but also won the

 for lending a location for the event, and of course the visitors who playtested and voted for the audience award.

We’re excited to bring these games — and their dream-filled worlds — to life again at 

CMGT dreamland game selection for The Overkill Festival 

📣 🫣 🚧 While you want to hear about games, dreams and celebration, here some news about delays, money and toxic fiber…

🏠 We knew it, finding a space as a cultural organisation would be a test of our ability to adapt. And since we really started looking back in 2023 we developed quite some skills to defeat the challenges. Two years ago we grabbed all our things and moved out of our top floor space leaving a building scheduled for demolition 🏨 (of course it is still standing…empty). Then we got forced into a 🚚 📦 nomadic limbo for more than a year, after discovering the temporary space that was given to us was standing on rotting foundations 🏚️ . And we worked that out with the wonderful support of so many local partners! (eternal love ❤️‍🔥).

While hosting our hoping events, we secured multi-year funding 💰🎉 for our unique program 🕹️🎞️ 🔉 and imagined multiple business plans ✖️ ‼️ ➰ to make ourselves fit in potential spaces. It seemed hard enough to find a new location, fighting in a real estate world where culture often loses to profit. But we made it! We worked out a deal (thanks to

) to afford commercial rent, signed a lease and we really believed May would be the beginning of a new era for us. We finally had a home again, a space for our caring community, wonderful playful artists, game-makers, queer and engaging people… ✨ 🎉 👐

… 🔥 💥 But... Welcome to level expert where the boss is ugly, sneaky and it eats money! Welcome to ASBESTOS ! 😰 ☠️ 💩

We wanted so much to be home, to paint our walls, moving in our colourful chaos, and opening doors this September. Instead, we discovered that the new location hosts this infamous wonder-material from the 60’s, once praised for insulation and now known for... giving people cancer.

We wish we could share different news, telling you about the arcade corner 💚 we will set up, the new sign for our cinema 🧡, the games 🩷 we are planning to showcase, the artists 💜 we are so much looking forward to working with…
But today we needed to share this before hopefully soon share the concrete steps in front of us! We’ll definitely need your help, we believe what we are trying to do is beautiful, relevant, sick and necessary. We won't be opening in September as planned and we’re not yet sure when we can open...

Sickhouse always loved challenges, may this one be the final boss before welcoming you all! 🥷 💪 🙅‍♀️ 🧞‍♀️ 🏋 🦄 🌈


Sickhouse won't be open open in September yet

On Saturday, May 24, the Ultimate IndieMash playful contest was broadcast live from Enschede to the world! Ten contestants showcased their projects through creative and humorous performances, and then joined each other for a chaotic, joyful play session led by none other than the Game Goblin.

And finally, the winning project was... 🥁🥁🥁 

: an open-source electromechanical game console with a wonderfully odd display, designed for creating and playing circular video games. Fully conceived and built in Argentina by 

Best of all, we will have Ventilistation at the next Overkill Festival! Where we will be able to talk with its creator, Alecu, and play some spinning games. If you're curious, remember to come to The Overkill, celebrated every year in Enschede, where you'll find our exhibition of alternative games and playful art.

🌐 Learn more about Ventilastation here

Ventilastation: the winner of the Ultimate IndieMash


Are you between 16 and 25 years old, and have you always dreamt of making your own short movie? Join us in this two-week Summer Film Camp! 



🎥 Open to young, curious minds eager to dive into the world of DIY filmmaking. You will learn about scenarios, storyboard, decors, filming, acting, editing, sound design and much more! 

✨ Together, we will make a short film from beginning to end. It will be experimental, it will be collective, and it will be full of improvisation! The finished movie will be premiered at 

, Sickhouse Short Film Festival in September.

🎬 You can sign up by sending an email with a short motivational letter/video/animation to Aike, where you tell us a bit about yourself, your favourite movie, what you like about films and what you are looking for in the Film Camp. The application deadline is the 16th of June. 




July 14th - 27th 
In and around Enschede
€ free! 
Sign up before June 16th to aike@sickhouse.nl



Please note that Sickhouse can't provide a place to stay or travel costs

Ben jij tussen de 16 en 25 jaar oud, en heb je altijd gedroomd van je eigen korte film? Doe mee met deze twee weken durend Summer Film Camp!



🎥 Het programma is open voor jonge, nieuwsgierige mensen die gemotiveerd zijn de wereld van DIY (doe-het-zelf) filmmaken in te duiken. Je leert over scenario’s, storyboards, decors, film, acteren, editing, sound design en meer!

✨ Samen maken we een korte film van begin tot eind. Vol experiment en vol improvisatie! De uiteindelijke film gaat in premiere tijdens het KO(O)RTS Short Film Festival in september.

🎬 Je kan je aanmelden door een email met een korte motivatie (text, video, animatie) naar Aike te sturen, waar je een beetje over jezelf vertelt, je favoriete film, wat je zo tof vindt aan films, en wat je verwacht van het filmcamp. De deadline om je aan te melden is 16 juni!




14 - 27 juli
In en rondom Enschede
€ gratis! 
Meld je voor 16 juni aan via aike@sickhouse.nl



Houd er rekening mee dat Sickhouse niet in een overnachtingsplek of reiskosten kan voorzien.

SICKHOUSE FILMCAMP - Make Your Own Short Movie

Sickhouse is proud to present the selection for Ultimate Indie Mash! Save the date of the show : 24th May accessible online! 

An immersive game created with twine, confronting the player with the role of passivity in the current aggressive system.

Body Focused Repetitive behaviour is a small game about a weird stim, nail biting, playing with your hair, picking at scabs... and ADHD

Outer Plays Eszter (she/they) & Joanna (she/they) - 

Have you ever found yourself elbow-deep in a sewer? Or followed ants disappearing into a hole? But most importantly, have you ever lost something that was important to you? Then you and Leah have something in common. "Something to Reach For" is a short interactive fiction game. To play, all you need is a mouse and some decision-making brainpower.


An experimental narrative game to look into the lives of others. Inspired by the experience of the makers the game reflect on isolation and depression in times of remote work.


Find the seven sanctuaries created by the mysterious ‘S’ and discover the untold stories and memories, the need for a safer world and the potential for healing. The game wants to inspire reflection about grief, identity, crying, human touch and rituals.

https://planning.goodcompany.be/nl/producties/plum

The Shaman, The Outsider and the Diet of Worms 


Multi-medium experience, presented as a collection of in-universe materials centred around the book 

The Shaman, the Outsider, and the Diet of Worms

, an autobiography of an anthropologist visiting a remote village. This includes the book itself, a republication with a preface, and a wiki page made 400 years after it was published. It is up to the player/reader to decide what parts of these materials, if any, are truthful.

👉 

Turns out, exploding a guy has consequences. Corporate spies Zoë and Gabe have messed up. There's only one thing they can do: escape to an alternate universe. But running can only get you so far. An interactive episodic story that shifts between comic, game and animation.

👉 

Ventilastation is the first game console from Latin America. A large fan spins a bar with lots of LEDs and a tiny computer, creating an odd circular display where games literally run at 600 RPMs. Players control the spinning action with a hacked testing lab dashboard, a submarine-grade gamepad or even a dance-dance mat.

👉 

https://ventilastation.protocultura.net/en/

Playful Systems LLC Jonah Warren (he/him) 

A fast-paced, two-player local multiplayer painting game. Two players compete on a shared screen, each armed with a mouse, a blank canvas, and a few simple paint tools. Each round, players select an abstracted version of a famous painting from art history. Players race to copy the painting as quickly and accurately as possible.

alpha_rats (he/they) & GLOR1A (she/they) 

An ongoing live A/V and video game project exploring different pathways for collective participation, using an afro-futurist virtual world as a stage for live broadcast and performance.

👉 

Ultimate Indie Mash Selection

After a year and a half of being nomads, on May 1 we will finally receive the keys to our new location at Oldenzaalsestraat 128. This will be our home for the next four years, and we are bursting with excitement about the new era ahead.

For five years, Sickhouse inhabited the third floor of the WARP building at Stationsplein, before being evicted due to plans for a housing project that has yet to be launched. Sickhouse was without its own physical location for 19 months (to be exact), during which time we continued to hold our events thanks to the support of friends and colleagues from the cultural circuit in Enschede, who generously lent or rented us their spaces and helped us in various ways to continue our programs.

Thanks to this support, our monthly events (TableTop Game Nights, Colliders: Playful Makers Meet-up, Sickhouse Cinema, and Stitching to Resist), our playgrounds (interactive exhibitions with guest artists), and our special events (like KO(O)RTS Short Film Festival, the Summer Film Camp, and The Overkill Festival) could continue while we searched for a new home. A thousand thanks again to Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Concordia Cinema & Kunstruimte, Het Vestzaktheater, DesignLab, GrensFrequentie, B93, Performance Factory, and many more.

It wasn't easy, but finally, an opportunity opened up. Last October, we signed the lease for Oldenzaalsestraat 128 — a building that housed a pool hall for many years — which will now become Sickhouse's new home.

 After receiving the keys, the next challenge will be fitting out the space: rebuilding our small cinema, stage, exhibition area, and bar. We will start hosting events already in May, but we will continue adapting the space to meet our community’s evolving needs.

We don't have a date for the official opening of the new location. But we will keep you updated on the progress we're making in this space that, like our previous location, aims to be a safe, fun, very pink space, where everyone can find a place and feel at home.

Sickhouse's New Location

KO(O)RTS is back in 2025!
The Short Film Festival of the weird, wicked and wonderful, organized by Sickhouse, returns for its second edition in collaboration with 

. To be held in Enschede, Netherlands the 26 & 27 of September.

KO(O)RTS is a vibrant 2-day short film festival. It provides a platform for (emerging) local and international filmmakers to showcase their work, celebrate creativity and connect with each other. At the same time, the program offers the public an alternative, never-before-seen and fun selection of films, presented with care, multisensory setups and
playful ways. 

In addition to the various screenings, the festival includes workshops, a filmmakers meet-up, and an awards ceremony. In this way, we strive to create a vibrant event that brings together both filmmakers, film lovers and celebrates the art of short film.

 and submit your film before May 1st (read the terms for applying on the open call page).

KO(O)RTS Short Film Festival OPEN CALL

It' time for The Ultimate IndieMash Game Contest! For the third time, indie-game makers from all over the world get to present their projects to an international audience, play interactive games together and have the chance to win a spot at The Overkill Festival 2025!



 : 30th MARCH
ULTIMATE INDIEMASH SHOW : 24th MAY



 is a contest for unique playful makers of the world, to present their work to an international audience. Hosted live from Bristol, UK and Enschede, NL, and streamed all over the world, the participants get three minutes each to show their game, interactive project, immersive installation or playful performance, through an online video connection. So you don’t have to travel to participate!

The evening is for them to share their concepts and gain new fans, and at the end of the program, the viewers and a jury of professionals will vote for their favourite project. Besides receiving the Sickest Trophy, the winner of the Ultimate IndieMash will also get a spot at The Overkill Festival 2025!



Not only are we looking for the most original, extravagant and alternative playful concepts, the 

 is also a celebration of diversity within the indie-game community. We welcome applications from candidates who are likely to be underrepresented in the gaming world. From coding mothers to queer visual artists and indigenous storytellers, everyone is invited to show their unique project and creations to our audience online!


 is a two-hour online program, filled with music, playful interactions and of course the gamemakers and their projects. In the first hour, the participants show their work in a 3 minute presentation, that can be as playful as you want! They will get a chance to answer some questions from the audience as well, to explain their projects as well as possible. In the second hour, the participants together with the audience will play some exciting games in which the audience creates prompts, drawings and more for the participants to be creative with. After that, the audience and the jury will vote for their favorite project, and at the end of the show the winner will be announced.



- Open call-deadline for participants is the 

. 
Afterwards, the Sickhouse team will make a selection of 10 participants to present their projects.
- Selection announced on the 

If you have any questions regarding this program, don’t hesitate to email 

The Ultimate IndieMash Open Call is now closed :)

In 2025 Sickhouse will have a new location and we are commissioning our first alternative arcade! 

Dutch artists Vincent Schoutsen and Wouter van Veldhoven are joining forces with French artists Leon Denise and Emilie Breslavetz from 

, to develop and build a playful arcade machine. Reflecting on the theme "Alternative control and Resistance" they are working together to create an arcade that will be playable at the new location of Sickhouse .

January and February are the months for creative brainstorms, starting with many ideas and getting inspired by their favorite objects. From buttons to plane cockpits, from sci-fi adventure to A.I relationships, the artists question the found objects they are working with, the role of the future player and the state of new technology in our society. 

In March, the 4 artists will be in Enschede for one week to bring everything together and build the arcade. They will present their process and progress during our monthly meet-up 

at BlackBrick.

The Arcade will be officially inaugurated in September, during the re-opening of Sickhouse in its new location! This project is a pilot edition and hopefully we will be able to commission several alternative arcades in the years to come.

Arcade Mayhem

The Overkill Festival 2024 - RADICAL, JOY, RESISTANCE After-movie is here! 



The Overkill '24 has been over for a few months, but now we can re-live the festival and recall our favourite memories with the after-movie!

The Overkill is a playful gathering creating space for artists, makers and players to meet, exchange and learn from each other. In 2024 with the theme “Radical Joy Resistance” the festival looked into the role of play in movements of resistance. Curious to find out how a certain lightness, alternative rules, humour, joy and pleasure can be of support when going into the street, countering official narratives, refusing institutionalised violences.. The festival started in front of the city hall with a performance of women led by LasTesis, followed by a playful march of resistance through Enschede. The festival included an interactive exhibition, workshops, hosted film screenings, a day of interactive talks and panels, a karaoke of resistance and an experimental music program. 

The program has been curated by Marie Janin and Aike Lutkemoller, directors of the festival with the support of Zuraida Buter, Erik Peters, Resistencia videoludica, Jugar Juegitos and JacqNoise. The festival is produced by Sickhouse.

You can find more pictures of the festival in the 

.
The next edition of The Overkill Festival “Return to Dreamland” is taking us in an exploration from #CalmTok to rest as resistance. It will be held from 19 to 23 November 2025, in Enschede.

LINK to video of the opening performance of LasTesis 

Video production: Djannah DZ (@artiuss) 
Music: LASTESIS (@lastesis) and RADVLAD (@radvlad) 
Voiceover: Bas Helmig (@bashelmig)

The Overkill Festival '24 Aftermovie

From January 24th to 26th, the Global Game Jam took place. The theme of this year was ‘Bubble’. So, all over the world, almost half a million game makers, programmers, designers, creatives and curious people came together to create, share and inspire each other in a very bubbly edition.

Sickhouse set up a venue for the jam to take place in Enschede in GrensFrequentie - a working place for musicians and entrepreneurs with spaces available for rent.  People from different cities and various backgrounds came together and created six staggering games!

Don't pop and don't stop! Bublo is a roguelite game about creating as many bubble gum bubbles as you can without popping them. The goal is to collect as many points as you can; the bigger the bubble, the more points you get. You can also get coins to buy upgrades, like extra strength for your bubble gum or blowing speed. This game was created in HTML.

This addictive brain-rot game is created to satisfy the urge to destroy freshly created (evil) bubbles with different shapes inside them. Inspired by the satisfaction of popping bubbles, whether plastic or soap. The sound is great! This game was made in HTML with the assistance of ChatGPT.

BUBBLE RAGE - by PAKO, YUXUAN, LUUKAS & PABLO

The biggest booming bubble battle! An arcade game for two players, one creates bubbles from a canister and the other chews and blows gum. Match the size of the bubble with the target, and win! This game is made in Godot Engine.

This augmented drinking game investigates why grocery prices have inflated into unaffordable price-bubbles. With a barcode scanner as your controller, this game is perfect for getting drunk while lamenting capitalism with your friends. Made in HTML.

A game of willpower; you play in bubbly world where you can try to resist popping the bubbles! This game was created in Bitsy Engine.

Space Bug is a platformer where you need to jump over various bubbles and reach the sun! It’s made in Game Builder Garage for Nintendo Switch.


You can play some of these games in the upcoming edition of COLLIDERS next Thursday, 

 to be part of COLLIDERS community and receive a monthly newsletter.

GLOBAL GAME JAM 2025 (RECAP)

In 2025 following the progress of our reflection on play and activism, in the context of a hyper productive society, long conflicts, climate catastrophes, engulfing A.I, we want to take the risk, the counter intuitive move, the challenge to stay in bed, under the blanket, heads in the pillow. If new technologies infiltrate our beds to transform it into data to be mined, XR technologies, video games and virtual environments are also relevant media when delving into dreamworlds. This new edition wants to be another chapter of resistance where we self-organise to wander, dream, let our subconscious meet, invite our nightmares in...


The year program of Sickhouse and its main guest artists will be the leading process to develop the research and the selection for the festival.

Shall these remain only dreams? we said. Shall we not bring these things into wakeful beings?

” Ursula K. Le Guin in Changing planes : Social dreaming of the Frin.

Jana Romanova, LARP designer, is invited to design new playful experiences based on collective dreams, role-playing and dream-building experience that explores the boundaries between reality and imagination. At its core, the "DreamWalks" is about creating and inhabiting collective imaginary spaces—something akin to sharing a dream or a hallucination with others.

DreamWalk #1 : KristalBath - Sunday 9-03
DreamWalk #2 : Flying Field - Saturday 29-03
DreamWalk #3 : Walk in the ParQ - Thursday 24-04
DreamWalk #4 : to be announces


Wherever they stood it came, suddenly and simultaneously: refusal, refusal, refusal. And in a gust they collapsed into sleep

In the second part of the year we are inviting Sondi to create an immersive set-up for her games “Mbombo-Dream Echo” and “Sleep On It”. The set-up/playground is meant to become a collective space for daydreaming, reinventing hybrid places of rest. Mbombo builds on years of research into the nature of rest and dreaming as radical forms of resistance against capital, colonial violence on the Black body. (concept formalised and put into embodied practice by Tricia Hersey in her Nap Ministry and her book Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto. New York: Little, Brown Spark, 2022.)

*JANNE SCHIMMEL (

Our very idea of productivity is premised on the idea of producing something new, whereas we do not tend to see maintenance and care as productive in the same way.

How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy


In the third part of the year Sickhouse is inviting Janne Schimmel to dive into nightmare references and hack a game device to navigate them, in hybrid ways mixing sensorial experience and digital storytelling. Curious about the ambiguous space, nightmares create for fantasy and pleasure.

Exhausted, Burned out, anxious, overwhelmed are now recurrent adjectives we associate with our daily life and our work environments. Technology coming to save us is now selling us “digital rest points’, ‘CalmTok’,’ Raw-dogging a flight’ ‘Pokemon Sleep app’ to track our sleep and for the best ‘Sleep Tourism’ hotels with VR lucid dreams experiences... 

Rest is resistance but it is under attack, our escape is already trapped. Beyond the idea of healthiness, The Overkill wants to look at rest as an act of refusal, a protest against efficiency, productivity, or even this monetised idea of a  better version of ourselves. 

Theme 2025 : Return to Dreamland



Here comes the last newsletter of the year, to wish you all beautiful holidays and announce a few dates for 2025.
The team of Sickhouse is incredibly proud and thankful for all the support it receive this year while being without a fixed home! While we were struggling to make space for our alternative ways of doing art, Sickhouse community, local partners and international playful friends made sure we could present, exchange, produce and that meant everything.

* We also especially want to thank our volunteers that followed us in the multiple location we hosted our program, that stayed enthusiastic and helpful, adapting all the time and making these places home for the community! THANK YOU! *

In this newsletter,

Look back on 2024, RADICAL JOY RESISTANCE

We wish you all beautiful celebration days, may you be with love ones and playful ones!


In 2024, with the theme RADICAL JOY RESISTANCE Sickhouse has been looking into the role of playfulness in movements of resistance.

 presented artists playing around with their hardware, questioning control, purposes and material. With 

Bearwarp - Silvia Binda Heiserova - Emilie Breslavetz - Leon Denise - Dorian Rigal - Vincent Schoutsen - Wouter van Veldhoven - Tijmen Zonnevijlle



Over the summer we invited artists to host LARP sessions 

 to engage in complex situations while taking on new roles. Designed by 



In September the interactive and performative installation 

, invited visitors and the local queer community to explore what their collective voice could express. Presented by 

.

In October, the immersive exhibition of 

 invited players to get lost and navigate, float, swim or dive in between all directions. Installation from 

Through this program we asked ourselves what or whom we are resisting and how we are integrating resistance in our lives, what spaces do we take, what shapes can it take… It brought us to places of weakness, intimacy, awkwardness, sadness, where play could almost always find room.

Empowered by this research we wanted 

 to be a moment to bring people together, a moment to rethink our way to take space, an event allowing planned but also spontaneous gathering to arise… The program has been set-up to showcase diverse testimony of resistance while giving the visitors tools to share their own stories.

From the performance with 

 to the March of resistance, the opening has been an incredible moment to recognise the power of play and the strength of this community.

Poetry is an important aspect that connected many moments of the festival, letting chosen words, random associations, foreign sentences give a certain lightness to our acts of resistance.

Addressing the role and the responsibilities of the game industry and art world in the violent context the society finds itself in, was also an important objective for our organisation. And the festival has been a way to step up and stand stronger.



Looking forward to start 2025 and plan the great move to our new location, we are happy, proud and thankful to share that Sickhouse will be supported by the 

De zeggingskracht en oorspronkelijkheid van het programma worden door de commissie hoog gewaardeerd. Het spreekt veel energie uit het voorstel. Het programma wordt door de commissie als voorbeeldstellend gezien voor de manier waarop de nieuwste generatie makers op een vanzelfsprekende manier eclectische programma’s samenstelt.

The committee highly values ​​the expressiveness and originality of the programme. It expresses a lot of energy in the proposal. The committee sees the programme as an example of the way in which the latest generation of makers naturally composes eclectic programmes.

"

quote from the Stimuleringsfonds committee review.

GOOD BYE 2024 (NEWSLETTER)

 is back! Are you a playful artist, a game maker or a creative coder based in Overijssel, looking for a community, mentors and material support? This is for you! 



 program from Sickhouse, supporting the making of an 

. You will get the support of professional mentors, visit exhibitions, join meet-ups and festivals and meet other professionals and studios from around the world. Every month you will organise a game night with your selection of playful projects, you will get the chance to present the progress of your work and collect feedback from different crowds. In November 2025, you will present your project at The Overkill festival.

SickProd was created to foster the game maker community of our region and create a chain of opportunities for local young talents within an international network.  
In 2023 we supported the development and release of 

, a narrative game from Shaman Garage, young studio from Enschede (NL) and Madrid (SP). Together we went to 

 in Hilversum and many other places. 

TO APPLY is super easy!



Add a portfolio (or some links), a CV and a motivation later.
If you have questions you can mail Marie at marie@sickhouse.nl or join our 

 channel to meet the community.

What we ask from you/ your studio :

- Being 

 for meetings, presentations, makers meet-up and excursions.
- 

 an interactive and playful project at The Overkill
- 

 the playful community of Enschede

What we give you access to :

- Professional support from playful curator Zuraida Buter and the Sickhouse team.
- Regular 

Test / Feedback sessions with diverse crowds


- A monthly fee of 250€ between February and November 2025
- 

 (tbd) to present the gaming experience in November at The Overkill festival 2025.
- Access to an 

The selection committee is led by Sickhouse co-directors Marie Janin and is constituted of Co-director Aike Lütkemöller, mentor Zuraida Buter and alumni and colliders coordinator Pablo San Gregorio. 
The committee is considering the playfulness of the work, the implication of the artist/maker in the local scene, the potential of development of the project.
The committee will study all the applications and discuss in a meeting the relevance of their 3 favourite choices, based on the criteria mentioned above. 
-----


SICKPROD OPEN CALL 2025

From 20 to 23 of June, 3 groups of Saxion CMGT students presented their new games at Sickhoes. Inspired by the theme of The Overkill 2024 " Radical Joy Resistance" the groups had to create a multiplayer from scratch. 

News

Open Call- Residency (January to March 2026)

New build coming up!

We made it! We reached 100%

We are half way and so grateful for your support!

Our Crowdfunding is Running!

A new arcade machine by Shaman Garage

New Sickhouse = asbests free

CMGT dreamland game selection for The Overkill Festival

Sickhouse won't be open open in September yet

Ventilastation: the winner of the Ultimate IndieMash

SICKHOUSE FILMCAMP - Make Your Own Short Movie

Ultimate Indie Mash Selection

Sickhouse's New Location

KO(O)RTS Short Film Festival OPEN CALL

The Ultimate IndieMash Open Call is now closed :)

Arcade Mayhem

The Overkill Festival '24 Aftermovie

GLOBAL GAME JAM 2025 (RECAP)

Theme 2025 : Return to Dreamland

GOOD BYE 2024 (NEWSLETTER)

SICKPROD OPEN CALL 2025

Saxion-CMGT new multiplayer games reflecting on activism

The Ultimate IndieMash : Playful Contest

SICKHOUSE 6

Make your game with Sickhouse

Statement Sickhouse Space

The Overkill festival - 2023

Statement future of Sickhouse

Film Camp summer 2023

Colliders - Game makers meet up

Creatieve Broedplaats funding

Sick Gaming trajectory

March to the Sick

Open call Indie/arthouse game makers

NEWSLETTER February 2023

Theme 2023 The Outburst of the digital Swamp

Job Opening: Online communication person

Reflecting on our multiSINsorial program

Join our Sickhouse Family!

Looking back at Bona with Nkhensani Mkhari

An incredible Week At Sickhouse, this is what we want to be

Queerdoh 2022 Press Release

Newsletter: June 2022

Sickhouse Spring 2022 Report

Meet contestants for Sickhouse EuroGaming Vision festival 2022

Take over Piet & Philipp