Join us for Spooktember – a month of programming at W139 about the art and politics of radical publishing. Click here to find out more.
Welcome to Spookstad
Spookstad is an Amsterdam-based publishing initiative that emerged out of squatting collective Mokum Kraakt. Our aim is to bring the message, aims and practical knowledge of direct emancipatory action to a wider audience.
Via this website, you can order our print publications, which we will ship to you (if you're in the EU). For worldwide shipping, order from our distributor, Idea Books.
Sign up for our Newsletter:
- Get in touch via email
- Follow Spookstad on Instagram
- Follow Mokum Kraakt on Instagram
Publications
Permanence through print: Klokkenhof
| Page count | 36 |
|---|---|
| Release date | 13 September 2025 |
| Price | € 10 |
Squatting always continues, but a squat rarely remains forever. Permanence Through Print is a series of publications in which squats are documented before they disappear. This zine, the first of the series, features Klokkenhof, a squat that has been persistently targeted by rightwing media attention. The zine intervenes to set the record straight through interviews with a number of the squatters, complemented by historical and theoretical reflections about the Klokkenhof building and the roots of the present housing crisis. The squatters themselves are portrayed within their living space, through collages of photography and linocut: in full view within their living spaces, while rendered anonymous at the same time.
- Download the PDF for free
Between Palestine and us
| Page count | 280 |
|---|---|
| Release date | 19 June 2025 |
| Price | € 20 |
Between Palestine and us documents and recounts the student uprising in Amsterdam in May 2024. Denouncing the complicity of their university and government in the destruction of Gaza, student protesters and other activists rose up across the city. They engaged in massive protests, organized encampments and occupations, and built barricades wherever they went.
At once an activist archive and counter-history, this book documents the events from the position of the participants. Through art and literature, in addition, it reflects on the necessity and limits of resistance, painting a stirring picture of international solidarity with Palestine.
- Download the PDF for free
Take Back Mokum
| Page count | 352 |
|---|---|
| Release date | 10 October 2024 |
| Price | € 20 |
How to squat a house?
How to organise a rent strike?
How to fight gentrification?
How to take back the city?
Take Back Mokum portrays the housing struggle in Amsterdam today. It shows how the squatting movement intersects with queer activism, the struggle of undocumented migrants, with ecological issues, and grassroots right-to-the-city initiatives. Consisting of essays, interviews, visual stories and much more, it compiles the insights and practical knowledges of a large variety of activists and collectives from all over Amsterdam. Together, they represent a shared exploration of urban life lived autonomously.
Take Back Mokum is the English translation of Pak Mokum Terug, and was released on 17 October 2024.
- Download the PDF for free
Pak Mokum Terug
| Page count | 368 |
|---|---|
| Release date | 15 June 2024 |
| Price | € 20 |
How to squat a building? How to organise a rent strike? How to fight gentrificaiton in your neighbourhood? This book, our first publication as Spookstad, centres these and other questions in a broad collection of essays, interviews, graphic stories, and more. It bundles the insights of many different activists and collectives from all of Amsterdam, who each in their own way contribute to the struggle for the right to the city. Written from an activist perspective, and full of radical alternatives, it offers the reader much-needed inspiration to become active themselves in the fight for an affordable and livable city.
Pak Mokum Terug is translated into English as Take Back Mokum. See above!
- Download the PDF for free