Sickhouse won't yet open in September

📣 🫣 🚧 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 toGemeente Enschede,TetemandDe Nationale Reisopera) 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! 🥷 💪 🙅‍♀️ 🧞‍♀️ 🏋 🦄 🌈

by Marie Janin
Co-Director of Sickhouse