Issue 6: BEFORE THE STORM by MOHA

It’s everywhere, TV, radio, social media, and even a guy handing out flyers by the subway.
They all say the same thing. It’s coming. They call it the storm.
They talk about it like it’s a natural disaster, but there’s this unspoken fear that we built it
ourselves, or let it grow, unnoticed.
Or chose not to look — even when it was right in front of us.
And now, they say, the system won’t save us, because they’re out of care. Not in some
dramatic movie way, but in the slow, quiet collapse we all kind of see coming.
When the systems we’ve always counted on stop working the way they should. When help
isn’t coming fast enough. When it’s clear we’re on our own.
What will you do?
Me? I don't know, but I hope I’ll pay attention and help where I can. Check on people.
Talk to my neighbors, not just wave at them from the driveway. I’ll try to grow something
— food, maybe, or just a bit of hope. I’ll try to be someone others can rely on, even if I
don’t always know what I’m doing.
I don’t have all the answers. But I know I don’t want to face it alone.
Because if this thing—whatever it is—it is really coming, then we don’t beat it by ourselves.
We get through it together.
That’s the only way that makes sense to me.

With great excitement, the new guest curators of SHEBANG, artist collective MOHA, present their project BEFORE THE STORM. SHEBANG Issue 6: BEFORE THE STORM is an interactive installation and temporary shelter created within the framework of SHEBANG. It is not just a shelter but a collectively shaped, self-organized space beyond the socio-cultural structures that confine us. It embraces the ungraspable, unpredictable, invisible, unpolished, intangible, non-functional, unproductive, and the in-between spaces of autonomy and care. This project challenges the idea that shelter must be institutional, functional, or imposed. Here, care is an act of defiance—a reclamation of space on our own terms.

Developed in collaboration with a diverse local working group consisting of people from different walks of life, backgrounds, and experiences, the installation takes shape in our temporary building in Amsterdam Zuidoost. Through shared conversations, food, sleepovers, dreams (both good and bad), hands-on building, carrying, lifting, running, doubting, and slowly building towards something. Participants can join at different stages—from the initial ideas to the final construction.

More than just an artwork, this project serves as a prototype for a much-needed societal space: a welcoming refuge for preparation, repair, shelter, and contemplation—both individually and collectively. BEFORE THE STORM will open to the public on Friday, June 13, with a special evening program, followed by two weeks of open access and a series of additional events. You can register here

BEFORE THE STORM by: Alice Pons, Hadir, Hermano, Huda Al-Attas, Iman, Marjorie Richards, Meada, Nesma Al-Shutfa, Olivia Reschofsky, Sjoerd Vocking, Wafa Al-Attas, Yahia Ahmad