Join Waag's Aslı Aydın Aksan at the Ambacht in Beeld Festival on 27 September to explore where the hand meets the machine, and to rethink what a craftsperson can be in the digital age.
In this lecture, researcher Aslı Aydın Aksan explores how digital technology can support craft without removing the maker. Through experiments in textile printing, natural dyes and interactive machine control, she will illustrate how digital tools, haptic systems and open-source protocols can expand access, immediacy and scale while keeping the craftsperson's intuition and agency at the centre.
Whether you work with your hands, write code, or simply care about keeping human creativity at the heart of what we build, you'll walk away with new questions, unexpected connections, and a glimpse of tools you can actually use.
About the presenter
Aslı Aydın Aksan is an architect, researcher, and lecturer at Waag Futurelab, where her work explores the intersections of computational design, digital fabrication, craft, and design education through critical making and experimentation. At Waag's TextileLab she builds open-source machines and protocols that put emerging technology at the service of the maker, including the Hapticolor machine. This innovative colour printer for fabric bridges traditional craft with sustainable and regenerative approaches to textiles. It's this hands-on, hacking-the-machine spirit—keeping human intuition and agency at the centre of digital fabrication—that she brings to the festival.
About the festival
The Ambacht in Beeld Festival ("Craft in Focus") is an annual celebration of craftsmanship held in Amsterdam. Running since 2013, it has grown into a major event with workshops and masterclasses by craftspeople from the Netherlands and abroad. What makes it distinctive is that the focus is not on selling products, but on exchanging knowledge and skills - the mission being to build appreciation for craft among people of all ages and enable encounters and cross-pollination.
With over 100 master craftspeople, workshops, masterclasses, exhibitions, demonstrations, films and performances, the festival offers a chance to discover crafts and learn new skills. Visitors can try everything from smithing, weaving and woodworking to glassblowing, felting and paper-cutting. There's also a cinema showing documentaries about craftsmanship throughout.
The Ambacht in Beeld Festival takes place on 26 & 27 September 2026 at the NDSM Loods in Amsterdam-Noord.
