Chris Keulemans is a traveling writer, journalist, moderator and teacher, based in Amsterdam. Born in Tunis, Chris grew up in Burkina Faso, Iraq and Indonesia, before returning to the Netherlands with his parents and sisters. He founded and ran three spaces for art and politics in Amsterdam. Now he’s happy to work outside of institutions. The only exception is the Cultural Hub, where Chris joined as an Associate Member, and has been advising on issues of cultural diplomacy, and cross-cultural communication since 2022. He is also a co-moderator and an active participant of the Philosophical Garden.
Chris Keulemans was the founder of Tolhuistuin in Amsterdam Noord. For his work he received the honorary pin of the city council in 2014. Earlier, he also founded the literary bookshop Perdu in Amsterdam in 1984. Additionally, during the nineties he worked at De Balie, centre for culture and politics in Amsterdam, first as a curator, then later as director.
For the European network of grassroots cultural centers Trans Europe Halles, he visited and coached new spaces across Europe, including Lviv and Dnipro in Ukraine. He writes about cities, refugees, football, cinema, war and universal basic income.
He has published books, fiction and nonfiction, and numerous articles on art, social movements, migration, music, cinema and war for Dutch and international media. He traveled extensively to study art after a crisis in cities such as Beirut, Jakarta, Algiers, Prishtina, Sarajevo, Tirana, New York, New Orleans and Ramallah, where he visited many independent cultural initiatives and interviewed local artists and activists.
