The following anonymous letter was addressed to the HGB Art Academy concerning a planned event by The Unsafe House that ultimately led to its cancellation. Authored and signed by 70 students, it outlines objections and calls for the initiative to be halted.
We publish the document in full, without commentary or endorsement, as part of our commitment to transparency and open dialogue. Its inclusion reflects the perspectives of the signatories and serves as a central element in our upcoming film, Scorched Earth, which explores the intersections of art, ideology, and debate.
With this open letter, we would like to express our concerns about the planned event by The Unsafe House at HGB. These objections are not a reaction to personal sensitivities or a blanket cancellation rhetoric. It is about a fundamental political and ethical problem that directly affects us as artistic thinkers and teaching institutions.
At this point, we would like to emphasise that this criticism is not directed personally against the inviting artist or her artistic practice. It is not about discrediting individual positions or intentions, but about the structural and ideological implications of the group The Unsafe House, which appears here as the co-organiser.
The invitation to this platform is part of a larger cultural context in which right-wing, anti-democratic, and neo-fascistoid thought patterns are increasingly finding their way into aesthetic and academic spaces — often well disguised as a theoretical play or intellectual challenge. The Unsafe House presents itself as an experimental discourse format that seeks to cross boundaries in thought and aesthetics.
However, what is sold as radical openness or critical reflection is often nothing more than the deliberate trivialisation and normalisation of authoritarian, elitist, and anti-democratic ideologies. Particularly problematic is the collective’s connection to central figures and ideas of ‘Dark Enlightenment’ and neo-reactionary thinking (NRx) — an ideological field that must be labelled neo-fascist at its core.
Connections to the Dark Enlightenment and Neo-Reactionary Thought
Curtis Yarvin (alias Mencius Moldbug) and the British philosopher Nick Land are central to this way of thinking. In their writings, they propagate a radical rejection of the Enlightenment, the idea of equality, democracy, and liberal human rights. Yarvin argues for the abolition of democracy in favour of so-called ‘formalist monarchies’ — i.e., state apparatuses organised by the private sector under the leadership of CEOs, which should no longer be democratically legitimised.
Nick Land outlines an anti-humanist technocracy in which efficiency, hierarchy, and exclusion are the basic principles of social order. These theories are not intellectual gimmicks. They have long since found their way into real political movements. Yarvin was in contact with advisors to the Trump administration, including Steve Bannon and Michael Anton, whose arguments in essays such as The Flight 93 Election dock directly onto NRx ideas. Peter Thiel has also publicly expressed admiration for Yarvin, linking libertarian-authoritarian thinking with an active agenda to undermine democratic institutions.
What sails here under the banner of radical thinking is in truth an elitist, authoritarian, deeply misanthropic project. Treating these ideologies as legitimate contributions to an artistic or political discourse without clearly contextualising or critically categorising them is not only negligent — it is dangerous. Its aestheticisation, de-politicisation, and ironic packaging are part of the strategy: the neo-fascism of our time does not wear a uniform, but appears as theory, performance, and subversion.
Aestheticisation and Trivialisation of Authoritarian Content
As the historian Enzo Traverso emphasises, the new fascism is not about a nostalgic revival of old symbols, but about transformation: authoritarian content in a postmodern guise. What is sold here as an aesthetic provocation or intellectual game is ultimately nothing more than the reproduction of neo-fascist narratives — de-politicised, but not harmless.
“The neo-fascism of our time does not wear a uniform, but appears as theory, as performance, as subversion.”
—Enzo Traverso
The ideological ambivalence and strategic aestheticisation of authoritarian content is particularly evident in the context of projects such as The Unsafe House, which has attracted attention in recent times through targeted provocation, problematic alliances, and the deliberate breaking of cultural and political taboos.
In a publicly available conversation between the neo-reactionary theorist Curtis Yarvin and the former Lebanese foreign minister Farés Bouiez, it becomes clear how right-wing populist to authoritarian narratives can be discursively staged as a legitimate perspective — without critical categorisation, embedded in a bourgeois-intellectual aesthetic.
The public presence of Yarvin’s European connections is also noteworthy in this context: at the beginning of the YouTube video, Unsafe House founders Ruth Spetter and Tarik Sadouma can be seen at his wedding — a symbolic image for the cross-border networking of culturally appearing but ideologically clearly localised actors.
The group also deliberately appears in (neo-)right-wing newspapers in the Netherlands and includes these articles on its website. The medium De Andere Krant declares its aim to show the ‘other side of the news’. In the past, articles have shown strong pro-Russian attitudes — they have advocated the annexation of Crimea and Russian support for Assad.
Public and Symbolic Connections
A particularly charged form of symbolism can also be seen in the group’s personal work in the ‘RosaLux Expo’ gallery show, curated by Hans Kuiper in December 2024, in which The Unsafe House was involved. Artist Maria van der Velde appeared at the opening wearing a striking cap featuring a golden coat of arms of the Russian Federation. Ruth Spetter was also seen wearing a patch with the inscription ‘Россия Вооруженные силы’ (‘Russian Armed Forces’).
While such elements were only shown with restraint on social media, they are clearly documented on the official website of the artist group. The use of these symbols — deliberately ambiguous, sometimes ironically framed — allows a double coding: ideological proximity is aestheticised, and criticism of it can be invalidated through a postmodern play with ambivalence and context shifting.
The same strategy is evident in the invitation of certain figures to collaborate (by the collective KIRAC, of which Tarik Sadouma was formerly a member), such as the Dutch artist Julian Andeweg, who rode in on a horse for the premiere of the production Honey Pot. Andeweg was sentenced to 20 months in prison in 2025.
Problematic Collaborations and Historical Context
This ideological proximity is also visible on a social level: Sina Khani reports in an interview that Sadouma invited him to a pro-Russian New Year’s Eve party. A supposedly harmless act, but one that fits into a larger pattern of ideological references. The overall picture that emerges is of an artistic practice that presents itself as politically ambivalent, but in fact offers a platform for authoritarian and neo-fascistoid narratives — packaged in an ironic aesthetic, but without critical distance.
And that is just the tip of the iceberg: in past formats of The Unsafe House, a cynically diffuse ‘post-woke’ framing and the uncritical wearing and display of imperialist, nationalist, or military symbolism — such as uniforms or insignia relating to the Russian armed forces — have been repeatedly observed.
“The mere display, the performative play with reactionary symbols or figures of thought without clear counter-marking is not a subversive strategy — it is their trivialisation.” — Mark Fisher
These aesthetic decisions are not neutral signs. They convey concrete political meanings — and they often do so in a deliberately coded manner to undermine criticism. The current strategy of many such formats — including The Unsafe House — cannot be justified as artistic provocation or theoretical ambivalence. The invocation of irony, over-identification, or alleged ‘post-woke’ attitudes does not protect against ideological impact.
Post-Woke Framing and Cultural Strategy
As Mark Fisher describes in his essay Exiting the Vampire Castle (2013), part of the cultural left can lose itself in cynical, morally paralysing discourses, while reactionary positions are normalised through aestheticisation and ironic detachment disguised as subversive. Fisher warns against a left that paralyses itself by resorting to irony and coolness instead of clearly positioning itself against authoritarian thinking.
Especially in artistic contexts — where irony often serves as a protective mechanism. There is a danger that right-wing ideas are not criticised, but merely stylised. The mere display, the performative play with reactionary symbols or figures of thought without clear counter-marking is not a subversive strategy. It is their trivialisation.
With concerns,
XXX
Sources and Footnotes
The Dark Enlightenment
- Curtis Yarvin (aka Mencius Moldbug): A Gentle Introduction to Unqualified Reservations (2007–2013) — blog series in which Yarvin describes democracy as inefficient and proposes technocratic monarchies.
https://unqualified-reservations.org - Nick Land: The Dark Enlightenment (2012) — Essay on the theoretical foundation of elitist, anti-humanist thinking. In: Urbanomic / The Dark Enlightenment (anthology), 2017.
- The Flight 93 Election (2016), Claremont Review of Books — argues in favour of an authoritarian “rescue” of America.
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/digital/the-flight-93-election/ - Behind the Internet’s Anti-Democracy Movement
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/02/behind-the-internetsdark-anti-democracy-movement/516243/
Ideological Categorisation & Neo-Fascist Tendencies
- Enzo Traverso: Die neuen Gesichter des Faschismus. Die extreme Rechte im 21. Jahrhundert. (Suhrkamp, 2017)
- Jason Stanley: How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them (Random House, 2018) — accessible explanation of authoritarian rhetoric.
- Mark Fisher: Exiting the Vampire Castle (2013) — on the context of post-Wokeism and problematic irony in digital spaces.
Case Studies
- Conversation between Curtis Yarvin and former Lebanese Foreign Minister Farés Bouiez:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es6AQJMZVSM
The film begins with a visit by Tarik Sadouma and Ruth Spetter to Curtis Yarvin’s wedding. - Substack article by Curtis Yarvin, 06/02/2025:
“The result: 80 years of war, with occasional cease-fires. That’s crackpot world — what my friend Tarik Sadouma calls the ‘Peace Fetish.’ It all belongs in the trashcan with USAID.”
https://graymirror.substack.com/p/gaza-inc - Image of Maria van der Velde/Nazareth, posted 27/01/2025, showing symbols of the Russian military at a Berlin vernissage contributed to by The Unsafe House:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DFU3Ey_u1Gw/ - Official site of The Unsafe House documenting the exhibition RosaLux Expo:
https://www.the-unsafe-house.com/events-blog/rosalux-expo - Article about Honey Pot:
https://archive.ph/5y6BR - Interview with Sina Khani, discussing the Pro-russian New Year’s Eve party invitation by Sadouma:
https://feltenink.com/sina-khani-im-a-piece-of-shit-human-being-who-is-always-in-some-kind-of-stupid-trouble-and-who-is-mortal-as-fuck-im-pretty-sure-i-will-die-laughing-one-day/ - Mohsen Namjoo podcast reference:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH1rYojNukE - De Andere Krant — pro-Russian reporting, cooperation with Russian government officials, articles posted by The Unsafe House:
https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Andere_Krant#Standpunten