October, 2026

Working period in the archives of Vichy, France, for the new project L'Ordonnateur. L'Ordonnateur is a collaborative project with writer and urban designer Hester van Gent, which casts a multifaceted perspective on Le Corbusier, his architectural-visionary plans for an ideal France, and his ideological and political aspirations during the Vichy regime. The project results in the experimental short film L'Ordonnateur. The project L'Ordonnoteur is generously supported by the Creative Industries Fund NL, the Mondriaan Fund and the Van Eesteren-Fluck & Van Lohuizen Foundation. For more info see @l_ordonnateur on Instagram

February 7 - May 24, 2026

Exhibition Rotterdam in Focus. The City in Photographs 1843 – Now, at Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam. For more info see: www.nederlandsfotomuseum.nl

February 28, 2026

Presentation at mini symposium The Legacy of the New Topographics and Landscape Photography Today, at Pennings Foundation, Eindhoven, organised by Hans Bol and Frits Gierstberg, with contributions by Hans Bol, Tanja Engelberts, Ruben Hamelink, Roderik Henderson, Elian Somers and Philippe Vandenbroeck.

January 10 - February 15, 2026

Exhibition Foundation Stone/Grondsteen at Pictura, Huis voor Hedendaagse Kunst, Dordrecht, with works by Mariëlle van den Bergh, Willem Besselink, Daria Khozhai, Ine Lamers, Thomas Meijerman and Elian Somers.

October 9-26, 2025

The work Capital City (A Stone from the Moon, 2015-2022) is selected for the Architecture Film Festival Rotterdam, AFFR 2025, and is part of the exhibition Realitiesⁿ - Shifting Dimensions of the Built World at Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam. For more info see: www.hetnieuweinstituut.nl

August 21 - September 14, 2025

Exhibition Resonances from the Void at De Doelen Art/CBK Rotterdam. For more info see: www.dedoelen.nl

November 18-24, 2024

The work Ecumenopolis (A Stone from the Moon, 2015-2022) is part of Rencontres Internationales Paris/Berlin 2024 (video library). www.art-action.org

May 3, 2024

Lecture Constructions of History at Art and Architecture Festival Cherish and Destroy, West Den Haag, Den Haag, with contributions by Eric Bolle, Tomas Dirrix, Gijs Frieling, Erik Hehenkamp, Jelle Hettema, Maarten van Kesteren, Moriko Kira, John Körmeling, Susanna Lindberg, Michiel van Loon, Lidy Meijers, Phoebus Panigyrakis, Jan van der Ploeg, Chris Smith, Elian Somers, Marcel Teunissen, Jacob Voorthuis, Chris de Vries, Anne Wellmer, Wouter Willers. For more info see: www.westdenhaag.nl

January 30 - February 9, 2024



The work Ecumenopolis (A Stone from the Moon, 2015-2022) is part of the International Film Festival Rotterdam, IFFR 2024. For more info see: www.iffr.com

May, 2023



Working period in Ouranoupolis, Greece, for the new project A Mountain Afar, about the autonomous monastic state of Mount Athos. On the peninsula live about 2000 Eastern Orthodox monks, the so-called Athonites, cut off from the rest of the world. Mount Athos has been a theocracy for 1000 years with its own regulations and laws, with the most notable law, the Avaton, prohibiting women from entering Athos.
The impossibility for women to enter Athos is starting point for the photography of the 45km-long peninsula from the border line at sea. This results in a video work about Mount Athos’ monastic ideal in relation to politics, power and gender. The project A Mountain Afar is generously supported by CBK Rotterdam.

January, 2023

Publication of the longread The Streets Are our Brushes, The Squares our Palettes, a conversation between the artists Ine Lamers and Elian Somers, and Anke Bangma, director of TENT, Rotterdam. The longread is published on TENT Online, The Dialogue Room, and can be read on: www.tentrotterdam.nl

September 3 - October 15, 2022



Duo exhibition The Streets Are our Brushes, the Squares our Palettes, by Ine Lamers and Elian Somers at Pennings Foundation, Eindhoven (NL). The exhibition investigates past and present utopias and their roles in political and ideological discourse and in global powerplays. The landscape plays a prominent role in the exhibition; it appears alternately as a magical landscape, as a utopian landscape, a revolutionary landscape, or as a layered, toxic landscape.

October 15, 2022

Conversation and roundtable discussion at the exhibition The Streets Are our Brushes, the Squares our Palettes at Pennings Foundation, Eindhoven. With contributions by the artists Ine Lamers, Elian Somers and Marjolijn Boterenbrood, and curator, researcher and writer Masha Domracheva.

October, 2022

Publication of the project California City in the magazine MONU #35 Unfinished Urbanism. California City is an investigation into an unfinished city holding itself between a sociologist’s ideological dream on community theory and the same sociologist’s intentional construction of a real estate bubble. For more info see: www.monu-magazine.com

July, 2021

Lucy Art Residency Talks Program, Kavala (GR), with contributions by Assaf Hinden, Milo Keller, Marten Lange, Stephanie Moshammer, Elian Somers and Grzegorz Stefanski. Lucy Art Residency is a residency program for visual artists working with photography, founded by Nikolas Ventourakis and Maria Mitzali.

July, 2019



Research trip for the new project A Stone from the Moon - Capital City.
A Stone from the Moon - Capital City is about the interplay between architecture and urban planning, ideologies and geopolitics, and investigates a city of the future in the heart of Eurasia. The project A Stone from the Moon - Capital City is generously supported by the Mondriaan Fund, Amsterdam.

March 26, 2019

Lecture The Other Landscape at Stichting ZAP (Zwols Architectuur Podium), Zwolle. The lecture is about the utopian urban landscape, the landscape of architecture, urbanism and ideologies. By means of photography, text, maps and archival material, Elian Somers leads the audience through a series of utopian landscapes - among others the modernist, socialist and neoliberal urban landscape. Within these urban landscapes various perspectives on truth, reality and history intermingle.

November 22, 2018



Salon World of Noon #3 - On Urbanism and the Cultural Cold War, with contributions by the artist and filmmaker Lene Berg, ZK/U (Center for Art and Urbanistics) - Olesia Vitiuk, Elian Somers and Carola Hein, professor and head of the History of Architecture and Urban Planning Chair at Delft University of Technology. The salon is organised by Air Berlin Alexanderplatz (Susanne Kriemann, Aleksander Komarav and Beatrijs Dikker), in collaboration with Elian Somers, and takes place at the Berlinische Galerie. The salon focuses on the Cold War battle of ideologies by means of cultural production; particularly urban planning and architecture. For more info see:
Invitation - World of Noon #3 (pdf) and ABA (Air Berlin Alexanderplatz)

September 23, 2017

Presentation of the new book One and Another State of Yellow at Unseen Book Market, Amsterdam. The work One and Another State of Yellow (2013–2017) studies the interplay between urban planning, ideologies and psychological warfare around two landscapes of ‘war’ in the United States of America: El Paso on the United States-Mexico border and Washington DC, its capital city. El Paso is an American double city with Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. In 2010 Juárez was listed as the deadliest city in the world. At the same time El Paso was listed as the safest city of the United States. Washington DC can be seen as the US overall war and control apparatus. Both the landscapes of El Paso and Washington DC are in the grasp of all kind of plans, systems and thought experiments which give various perspectives on reality – both from the field of architecture and urban planning, as from the field of strategic planning. For more info see: www.fw-books.nl

August 26, 2017

Salon The Guide, the Author and the Scientist, Disclosed #8, Het Wilde Weten, Rotterdam, with contributions by Ine Lamers, Elian Somers and guest Raymond van den Boogaard. For more info see: www.hetwildeweten.nl

February 28, 2016

The work One and Another State of Yellow - From the Monument is presented as an artist contribution at Open! Platform for Art, Culture & the Public Domain. In close collaboration with Stroom Den Haag, Open! started the research theme Culture of Control, which critically discusses how the primacy of control and security has further developed in recent years. Culture of Control contains contributions by Michael Seemann, Marc Schuilenburg & Rik Peeters, Clare Birchall and Elian Somers.
The work can be viewed at: www.onlineopen.org

April 22 - July 10, 2016

Exhibition Utopian Dreams at TENT, Rotterdam, with works by Wim Gijzen, John Körmeling, Claes Oldenburg, Rem Koolhaas-OMA, Utopia, Atelier Van Lieshout; Elfie Tromp, Elian Somers, Richard Hutten, Han Hoogerbrugge, Cookies. The exhibition is curated by Reyn van der Lugt in collaboration with Mariette Dölle and Marjolein van de Ven. For more info see: www.tentrotterdam.nl

June 01, 2016

Discussion event Rotterdam and the River, TENT, Rotterdam. During the event, the artists John Körmeling and Elian Somers and the artists collective Utopia discuss with moderator Christine de Baan the magic of the Maas. The evening takes place as part of the Utopian Dreams group exhibition, curated by Reyn van der Lugt, which features artists' extraordinary plans and dreams for Rotterdam. For more info see: www.tentrotterdam.nl

August 26 - October 2, 2016

Exhibition The (In)constancy of Space - Struggle for Identity, Arti et Amicitae, Amsterdam. The exhibition deals with the concept of man made space and its (in)constancy, not only in physical sense but also on sociological, symbolical, psychological and ideological level. With works by Anke Van den Berg, Robbie Cornelissen, Tanja Deman, Darko Fritz, Antonio Grgic, Igor Grubic, Zachary Formwalt, Zeljko Kipke, Zlatko Kopljar, Margareta Lekic, Ferenc Molnar, Zoltan Novak, Neli Ruzic, Sara Rajaei, Sandro Setola, Rik Smits, Elian Somers, Marjan Teeuwen, Rob Voerman, Danijel Zezelj, and is curated by Neva Lukic. For more info see: www.arti.nl

September - December 2015

Working period at Air Berlin Alexanderplatz (ABA), Berlin. ABA is a residency program based in the centre of Berlin. ABA hosts international artists, designers, curators, architects and critical writers. Residents work on specific projects related to the city of Berlin with a focus on research-based practice. The residency is generously supported by the Mondriaan Fund, Amsterdam. To find out more see: www.airberlinalexanderplatz.de