AA Projects.
Amsterdam Alternative started in 2015 with a free bilingual and bi-monthly newspaper. After that many other projects were initiated by the always growing international collective of skilled and highly motivated volunteers. On this page you’ll find an overview (in random order) of all the Amsterdam Alternative projects that have been realized sofar.
Please get in contact if you want to join one (or more) of our projects, or if you have a great idea for a new AA project.
From the 1st of February 2023 Amsterdam Alternative is running the cinema + bar on the second floor of the OT301. The spaces are being used for film & documentary screenings, discussion nights, comedy, music, dance performances, workshops, book launches, podcast recordings and more.
This modular web documentary is intended as an inspirational document, a guide and an archive. It is a compilation of stories about and quests for other ways in which we can shape society. We (and many others with us) are convinced that things really can be done differently and that a different view of ownership can play a major role in this.
Sometimes, you sense it. A gesture, a sound, something pulses quietly beneath the surface of the city. A story waiting to be heard. Rad-Ish is a podcast about the silent dreamers, everyday radicals and hidden dissenters who keep the city alive. We seek out the voices of the underground, the pillars of movements that often go unseen yet build the foundation for collective spaces and a desirable future for the many, not the few. On a regular basis we release a short episode where we pull that little red thread that runs through Amsterdam, from the people directly shaping alternative culture to those nurturing it in the background. We're here to pay attention to those who resist the obvious, and talk to those who quietly practice other ways of being.
Amsterdam Alternative wants to buy permanent space for experiments and projects that do not fit the commercial world, as they aren’t profit driven. We want to create new free spaces where living, working, education and public functions are combined. Where art and culture are not necessarily the main focus, but social, political and social activities have a place too.
Amsterdam Alternative organised the first edition of the Vrije Ruimte Festival (Free Spaces Festival) in 2022. The second edition took place in 2025, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Amsterdam Alternative. The aim of the festival is to connect various free spaces in Amsterdam, amplify the voice of the underground, give stage to a wide variety of experimental art forms and show everyone that there is still a lot more then the commercial mainstream.
In a media landscape dominated by shallow content, fear, distrust, anger, violence and toxic polarization, Fragmenta will offer an alternative. We don't simply focus on problems or on generic or popular topics but rather connect to individuals and their stories. We seek passion, hope, optimism and inspiration in order to help create a better, more fair, equal and healthy world for the many and not the few.
AADE is organised by Amsterdam Alternative since 2018. We started the AADE not as an anti ADE event but to offer an alternative music program that is more affordable, more experimental and far from all the commerce that comes with the big, and most often commercial ADE (Amsterdam Dance Event).
In 2018 we started organizing AA Talks. These are public discussion nights featuring a panel or an individual speaker, on a specific topic. The subjects of the AA Talks are closely related to the topics and themes we write about in the newspaper (politics, arts & culture, climate, free spaces, anti racism etc.). The talks usually take place in one of the participating venues of AA or at related organizations.
On Saturday 21st of June 2025 Amsterdam celebrated its 750th birthday with a big event on the Ring (highway around Amsterdam). Amsterdam Alternative had 150 meters and programmed a full day of shows, performances, art, theatre and other wild stuff.
The Amsterdam Alternative Academy is a low-threshold initiative to think together about our world. Resistance starts with collective consciousness and consciousness starts with analysis. We will discuss texts and others cultural objects and/or happenings on the topics of capitalism, climate crisis, gender, racism, digitization, and also everyday life (because the personal is still political). We do so by taking an intersectional perspective on capitalism, patriarchy, white supremacy and other dominant power structures.