Skatepark co-founder. Artist. Co-founder of cultural hotspots PIP and Inter-City. Steven van Lummel is a The Hague-based creative force with a habit of turning ideas into places.

Ahead of his exhibition with A.N.D. Tokyo (running from 4 to 19 September 2026) we sat down with Steven to talk about the value of just trying, being the one who builds the towers, and the absurd luxury of having a little forest.

[JUST GO: FUCK IT, LET'S BUILD THAT TOWER]

REFERENC: Steven, are you more of a thinker or a maker?

Steven: Fifty-fifty balance. Really fifty-fifty. I can’t do without either one.

REFERENC: There are people who come up with great ideas, but can’t execute them. Or the other way around.?

Steven: I agree. I sometimes wish one of the two was my centre of gravity, but it just isn’t.

REFERENC: It seems almost rhetorical, but how important is creativity to you?

Steven: How important is life? Who said it, Descartes? I think, therefore I am. I believe more in what Tadanori Yokoo said: I make, therefore I am. In that sense, perhaps I’m more of a maker than a thinker.

REFERENC: How does creativity show up in your daily life?

Steven: It runs through everything, all day. I draw a lot, I’m in my studio two or three days a week. I think creativity is often seen as just drawing or painting, but I think it’s much broader than that. As an accountant, you can also be creative. It exists on so many different levels. The one differentiator is how much of it you let into your life, and I try to let in as much as I can.

REFERENC: What are you currently working on?

Steven: My attention is very splintered, and it has been for a long time. I just designed a sparkling wine bottle for Lowlands, am working on a jacket with A.N.D. Tokyo while also designing the cover for Alma Kwartet and Dirtmachine.

But my biggest project is where I am right now. A piece of land, 8,000 square metres. We called it Inter-City. It’s right by the train tracks. On the opposite side of the tracks lies PIP, our cultural venue. During COVID, we were told we had to leave. So last June, after moving heaven and earth, we signed the lease for this place. We’ve been renovating it for almost a year now, turning it into a small cinema, a theatre, a hall for exhibitions, a small café and restaurant, a gym and a front and back yard. And now the end of PIP has been postponed, so we have two venues that complement each other: PIP is more for the night, Inter-City more for the day and evening. Oh, and it also has a little forest. I’m walking there right now.

REFERENC: A private forest? Seems like a wonderful place to make decisions.

Steven: Yes. It’s an absurd luxury, of course.

REFERENC: So you do a lot of different things: music, art, radio. Is that driven by some overarching philosophy, or do you just do whatever you feel like?

Steven: It comes from a real urgency! I think there are a lot of negative role models out there. Think Conan the Barbarian or whatever, it’s easy to break something and get your yes! that way. We always wanted that yes!-feeling, but through organising something and leaving everything neatly behind after.

In everything I do, that’s the underlying line. Making a contribution to the small world I move in, without it needing to be happy all the time. Sure, things are allowed to break. But fix them. You’re allowed to hit each other, but say sorry. You’re allowed to touch, but ask first.

REFERENC: Please keep going.

Steven: Shaping your own world, that’s something I’ve found interesting for a long time. I graduated from the art academy with a project that lasted my entire time there: Stichting ter Bevordering der Sociale Contacten (Foundation for the Improvement of Social Contacts). We’re in this together, so let’s get after it together. PIP also stands for Primus Inter Pares: first among equals. We’re all equal, but if you want to move forward, someone has to say: let’s build a tower. Instead of asking: ‘well, how tall should it be, is that safe?’ Just go: fuck it, let’s build that tower!

Even where I’m standing right now. We had a load of wooden boards, and someone said: let’s build a floor in the forest! So yeah, three days later, we suddenly had a floor in the forest. I have absolutely no idea what we’ll do with it, but it’s there. This building energy mostly comes from David Schoch, my partner in most of my projects. And the rest of the team, of course.

REFERENC: I can see you organising some fun things there.

Steven: Anything can happen on that floor.

[THINGS ARE ALLOWED TO BREAK. BUT FIX THEM. YOU'RE ALLOWED TO HIT EACH OTHER, BUT SAY SORRY. YOU'RE ALLOWED TO TOUCH, BUT ASK FIRST.]

REFERENC: Do you see yourself as a craftsman?

Steven: I’d love to be a craftsman. This morning, I watched a documentary about the oldest company in the world: a Japanese carpentry workshop. It’s been around for 41 generations, passed down through one family. The amount of craftsmanship there is insane. And the calmness! No one speaks. They just get on with it. A temple roof needed replacing. They took the entire thing off and brought it to the workshop, taking it apart meticulously.

I’d love to be able to do that, but I’ve accepted that I really can’t. It’s just that I try a lot of things.

REFERENC: So what does it mean in your work to do things well?

Steven: Perfection isn’t something I pursue. I’m good at trying. I believe in the Pareto principle: with 20% of your energy, you get 80% of your result. Perfecting that last 20% will cost you huge amounts of energy and stress. So I stay away from that as much as possible.

Sure, there is craft in what I do. I make my own frames and stretch my own canvases. I make my own ink and pens. There’s something there, but it’s kind of clumsy. It comes from patched-together knowledge.

REFERENC: That’s still better than most. Too few people who actually try.

Steven: Look, you have Josef Albers. He spent his entire life doing colour research. Insane. Or Dizzy Gillespie, who spent his whole life just playing the trumpet. If you find that one thing in life, that one thing that transcends everything… that’s the ultimate. Mastering one craft seems amazing to me. But it’s not for me. Unfortunately, and fortunately. The power of life lies in accepting what you can do, and to create space for dreams and things you don’t know yet. I think. Maybe. Yes.

REFERENC: I recognise that. Society really emphasises it: find that one thing and let it kill you. If you found it tomorrow, would you throw yourself into it?

Steven: No! I don’t think it’s possible anymore. I’m 45. How old are you?

REFERENC: I’m 32.

Steven: Yeah, that’s not possible anymore. I’ve created a space for myself. I’ve been in hospitality for twenty years, and an artist for all my life. I’ve found my visual language.

I’m really happy with this life. I try to be. Of course, in running a cultural venue, I deal a lot with rules, with the municipality, and so forth. But I’m also independent. We’re a nightclub, but we’re also kinda not. We’re not open three nights a week, but we’re also kinda open when we want to be. We have a super team of around a hundred people helping us out, and yet we’re a non-profit without any debts. We’re poppy. Heavy, but also light. If we close tomorrow, we’ll have a lot of speakers and a bit of a problem. But still, I’m really happy with my situation.

REFERENC: Are you attached to objects at all?

Steven: Yeah, fairly. I’d like to say I’m not materialistic. It’s not so much expensive things, it’s just shoes, really. Shoes are my thing. And books, records, tools for drawing: brushes and ink. That’s where the money goes!

REFERENC: What’s your view on objects?

Steven: I think we’ve moved more and more towards single use. I really believe everything has a soul, even pieces of broken glass. The more care and love is put into an object, the more soul it gets, and the longer you use it. Using things for a long time, that’s the core of sustainability and it’s massively underrated.

REFERENC: Supermarkets are not your favourite place to be then, are they?

Steven: Lots of plastic trays. But at Ekoplaza, everything is six times as expensive. Still: tomatoes in paper bags feel so much better.

Seeing quantity as quality is not the road we should take in society. Same goes with wearing clothes. Why should we wear something different every day? Things often get more beautiful as they age.

REFERENC: Agree. Do you get that with shoes too?

Steven: Yeah. Whenever I go on stage, I want to wear something made by someone I know. Whether it’s a shirt painted by a kid from the Schilderswijk, or shoes designed by a friend. I value that a lot: wearing things made by someone I know. I then form a personal relationship with that item.

I ran into Hugo (REFERENC co-founder) and his kid at a hardware store. We had a short, nice chat. Then he turned out to be making a shoe, and he came by and gave it to me. Every time I put that shoe on, I think of that little interaction. I have no clue what the factory looks like, I don’t know exactly who made that shoe, but I know the person behind it. I know his path and how he stands in it. That makes me proud to wear that shoe. If someone asks me about it, I can tell a story. The sole you stand on, the fabric that touches your skin: if you have a relationship with that somehow, it’s added value.

This portrait was captured at Steven’s atelier in The Hague. Words by Jan-Willem Wesselingh. Photography by Albina Neshemedinova. Styling by Steven van Lummel.