Gaudeamus 2026: Sunday Afternoon + Resisting Waters

From September 9 – 13, Gaudeamus Festival returns to Utrecht for its 2026 edition across 15 locations in the city. Looking for most mind-melting acts of the festival? Read our full guide here.

The final day of Gaudeamus winds down gently but keeps its electronic threads intact. The final day of Resisting Waters includes a 6-hour continuous performance of ensemble Ear to the Earth, a dialogue between musicians and hydrophones previewing an upcoming project on underwater noise pollution, alongside a roundtable on sound, ecology and imagination.

Resisting Waters

The exhibition brings together Mariko Hori, whose interactive installation Forever in Different Ways imagines a post-tipping-point world where water no longer behaves predictably; Nischal Khadka & Merel Maan Galama, whose Sacred Ecohydrology puts Himalayan river cosmologies in dialogue with Dutch engineered water systems through field recordings; Yonca Yildirim, who brings her research series Ecotone into the greenhouse of the Oude Hortus, treating the space’s machinery and plant life as active sonic material; and Stijn Demeulenaere, whose Zijlijn / Linea Lateralis confronts underwater recordings from the North Sea’s busiest shipping lanes. Also part of the programme: Maria Sappho‘s participatory textile instrument Rivers and Other Mother Tongues, Caro de Valk‘s rhythmic shoreline installation Intertidal zone(s), and FIELD FLUX‘s Sonic Leaks, which listens to the politics of water infrastructure itself. More here.

Check out the timetable here for a detailed overview.

The people at Gaudeamus have kindly offered a limited amount of free tickets for Subbacultcha members. Please make a reservation by sending an email to mailinglist@subbacultcha.nl with ‘Gaudeamus 2026 Sunday Afternoon’ in the subject line + your name in the email.