Nieuwe Instituut welcomes Donna Haraway for the opening of the ‘FUNGI: Anarchist Designers’ exhibitionNieuwe Instituut welcomes Donna Haraway for the opening of the ‘FUNGI: Anarchist Designers’ exhibition

• Nieuwe Instituut, the Netherlands’ national museum for architecture, design and digital culture, will open FUNGI: Anarchist Designers on 20 November.

• This new exhibition, curated by anthropologist Anna Tsing and designer Feifei Zhou, showcases fungi as independent designers, allies and world builders.

• Marking the opening is a discussion between Tsing, philosopher Rosi Braidotti and American philosopher and historian of science Donna Haraway, who will receive the Erasmus Prize this year.

• Tickets for the conversation with Donna Haraway will go on sale on Wednesday 22 October. Admission to the subsequent festive opening of FUNGI is free.

On Thursday 20 November, the Nieuwe Instituut – the Netherlands’ national museum for architecture, design and digital culture – will open its latest exhibition: FUNGI: Anarchist Designers. To celebrate this occasion, the exhibition’s co-curator, the anthropologist Anna Tsing, will talk to the American philosopher and historian of science, Donna Haraway. This discussion will be moderated by the philosopher Rosi Braidotti.

Haraway, Tsing and Braidotti have each made an undeniable contribution to the theory around more-than-human coexistence in recent decades. Their ideas about how to respond to the threat that human actions pose to the continued existence of life as we know it on Earth have significantly influenced public debate and inspired scientists, theorists and artists and designers from various disciplines.

With the title 'Composing for Multispecies Survival in Dark Times', they will discuss the ‘ghosts’ of vanished creatures that help to sustain our resistance in dark times and the possibility of life in the aftermath of extinctions and environmental crises.

The Praemium Erasmianum Foundation has announced that Donna Haraway will receive the Erasmus Prize this year. The Erasmus Prize is an annual award for lifetime achievement, presented to individuals or institutions for their outstanding contributions to the humanities, social sciences or arts. In 2025, Donna Haraway will receive the prize in recognition of her work on more-than-human equality, openness and connection. The Erasmus Prize will be presented by King Willem-Alexander on 25 November.

The discussion ‘Composing for Multispecies Survival in Dark Times’, featuring Donna Haraway, Anna Tsing and Rosi Braidotti, will begin at 18:30 on Thursday 20 November. It will be introduced by the Nieuwe Instituut and Geertjan de Vugt, director of the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation.

Tickets cost €12.50 and will be available from Wednesday 22 October on the Nieuwe Instituut website.

The festive opening of FUNGI: Anarchist Designers will follow, with an opportunity to visit the exhibition. This part of the programme is open to the public free of charge.

FUNGI: Anarchist Designers was curated by the acclaimed anthropologist Anna Tsing – who inspired countless thinkers, makers, activists and designers with her book The Mushroom at the End of the World – and the designer Feifei Zhou of terriStories.

Fungi, also known as moulds and mushrooms, meet a wide range of human needs. For instance, we eat mushrooms and use penicillin to fight bacteria. In design and architecture, fungi are being embraced as a new, on-trend material. However, FUNGI does not take this human-centred approach. Instead, it presents fungi as independent designers, allies and world builders who undermine the human ambition to control and dominate the world.

This exhibition, which sits at the intersection of science, art and design, sees the Nieuwe Instituut look beyond the traditional boundaries of design disciplines. What can we learn from non-human life? FUNGI is therefore not a traditional design exhibition, but an experimental space that encourages us to think, live and design differently.

FUNGI: Anarchist Designers is on display at the Nieuwe Instituut from 21 November 2025 to 9 August 2026. This exhibition has been made possible thanks to the support of the Cultuurfonds, the Mondriaan Fund, the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts and the Iona Foundation.

For additional information, please visit the website.

You can download the press kit with accompanying images here.

Attend the opening
There are a limited number of press tickets available for the discussion with Donna Haraway. Please contact us to register.

Press previews and interviews
In the days leading up to the opening on Thursday 20 November, members of the press are cordially invited to preview the exhibition. Curators Anna Tsing and Feifei Zhou are also available for interviews. Please contact us to schedule an appointment.

Contact
Robin van Essel, Press Officer +31 (0)6 3803 9218, r.vanessel@nieuweinstituut.nl