Documentary is more than film on a screen. De Brakke Grond is the heart of IDFA DocLab: Shared Realities, featuring an exhibition of more than 20 interactive artworks exploring how realities are created, influence one another, and are shared. Spread across several rooms, the exhibition brings together games, VR, and installations that defy easy categorisation. Wander between spaces, try out interactive artworks, or simply watch. Some experiences are intimate and individual, while others invite you to interact with people around you.
Visiting the Exhibition
Admission is free, but you need an exhibition entry ticket. Select your preferred day on this page to get your free ticket. You can arrive at any time on that day and explore the exhibition at your own pace. Your exhibition ticket gives you access to the exhibition spaces and the artworks you can freely explore, including:
Archive Arcade – Located in one of the exhibition rooms, this arcade brings back three works from previous DocLab editions that had become inaccessible due to outdated technology. Drop in and play.
DocLab Playrooms – Meet artists, try out prototypes, and join the conversation. Drop in on November 14, 16, or 17, anytime between 3:00 and 7:00 PM. No fixed start times.
Experiences requiring a separate ticket
Some experiences at de Brakke Grond have limited capacity and require a separate booking:
VR Gallery* – A dedicated space within the exhibition, open throughout the festival.
Shifting Connections* – A multi-user VR experience located in the same space as the VR Gallery.
All the Downtime (Collective Experience) by Ant Hampton – Only two performances, on Sunday November 15.
Escape the Internet by Lucas Rizzotto – Only two performances on Nov. 13 and Nov. 16.
*Sold out online? There are free walk-in spots available for which you can queue on site.
Explore the full selection of works featured at DocLab.
Discover DocLab across Amsterdam
Beyond de Brakke Grond, the DocLab programme continues at other locations across the city:
- POLYMORF's Microbiome Restaurant at @droog – 8-minute walk
- Dries Verhoeven's Orgasmagoria at Casa Rosso – 5-minute walk
- Darren Emerson's In Pursuit of Repetitive Beats at ENTR VR Museum – 18-minute walk or 15 minutes by tram
- Abner Preis' Lost Hood - Spui 14 (outside) - 8 minuten loopafstand
- ARTIS-Planetarium Fulldome evening program on Nov. 14 and 17 – 25-minute walk or 14 minutes by tram
- Tamara Shogaolu’s The Invisible Woman: an Immersive Opera in the Making on Nov. 15 at Nationale Opera & Ballet – 12 minute walk
Nine veteran New York theater artists each have two conversations: one in person with artist Carrie Sijia Wang and one with a text-based chatbot impersonating her. Both are presented simultaneously in this video installation.
Artist Noa Jansma seeks an earthly afterlife in this installation presenting recordings of microscopic life in her father’s grave. Visitors can also taste root vegetables grown in that same soil if they choose.
On a deliberately paced walk through fragmented virtual spaces, a semi-autobiographical story unfolds about belonging and grief.
The closer you get to your digital reflection in this video installation, the more details you see in the hundreds of photographs that make up that reflection. An archive of aerial bombardments from 2025 turns your body into an index of destruction.
In this VR experience, South African multi-disciplinary artist Natalie Paneng invites you into the three worlds that make up her artistic practice: a virtual gallery, her studio, and the playful dreamworld that fuels her work.
The resistance of times past comes back to life on Spuistraat in central Amsterdam, where gentrification has hit hard. Through augmented reality, the countercultures of the past—from squatters to the Kabouters—reclaim the public space.
