Date: Saturday, 18 July 2026
Door: 19:30h CET
Start: 20:00h CET
Entrance: 0/3/5/7/10 euro (pay wat you can)
Location: Varia (Gouwstraat 3, Rotterdam)

How do brown rats, silverfish and city birds relate to board games, puppet theater and generative music algorithms?The Multispecies Festival returns to find the answer to this question by showcasing new collaborations and connections between different species in the field of performance. This year, the programme spans two months, with activities in both June and July. We have invited various artists that explore new ways of engaging with the living world around us, be it through field recording, instrument building, puppetry or other kinds of performance. You are invited to join us in this endeavour!

Yi Zhang (they/she) is an anti-disciplinary artist-researcher based in Eindhoven, who works across drawing, video, performance, installation, and workshops. They are the creator of Rat King: on Migration of the Brown Rat, a board game that centers around the transnational, trans-century migration trajectory of the brown rat (Rattus norvegicus), also known as the common rat, street rat, sewer rat, dock rat, Hanover rat, or Norwegian rat. Following a game session earlier in the evening, Zhang will give a short presentation of the project.

Matteo Marangoni is an artist and community organiser interested in sonic rituals, DIY media and applied utopianism. His artistic practice focuses on creating spatial experiences probing the relationship between subject and object, nature and technology. At this event he will present Weather Conscious, a nomadic performance that invites the audience to tune into the environment. A stereo microphone pair and two light sensors capture the presence of wind, sunlight, and bird vocalizations.This data guides a generative music algorithm loosely inspired by the aeolian harp. The textures that emerge unfold as a phenomenological meditation on shared agency with the more-than-human world.

https://matteomarangoni.com/Weather-Conscious-page

Kexin Hao is a visual artist born in Beijing and based in The Hague. She has an interdisciplinary practice across art, design, and performance. She likes to borrow archetypes in pop cultures such as aerobic workout, video games, online streaming, and puppet theatre, aiming to provide the audience with playful, participatory, and on-site experiences. At Extratonal she will present an adaptation of Revolution is a Dinner Party, a puppet play that stages an afterlife dialogue between a sparrow and a rat as victims of historical pest eradication campaigns. Debating class conflicts, the two reveal the entanglement of human and vermin in political sanitation efforts. A silverfish guides them to a dinner party, where the revolution unfolds…

https://howkexin.com/project/revolution-is-a-dinner-party.html

This event is made possible with the kind support of Popunie Rotterdam, Fonds Podiumkunsten, Gemeente Rotterdam, Stimuleringsfonds Creatieve Industrie and Buitenplaats Brienenoord.