Welcome to Spookstad
Spookstad is an Amsterdam-based publishing initiative that emerged out of squatting collective Mokum Kraakt. Our goal 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:
Publications
Whoring Art: a Red Light Anthology
| Page count | 224 |
|---|---|
| Release date | 21 May 2026 |
| Price | € 20 |
What happens when sex workers are in charge of their own image, labor laws, work places, and community spaces?
Sex work everywhere is facing erasure from public life. In Amsterdam’s infamous Red Light District – De Wallen – the combined forces of gentrification, repression, hetero-cis sexism, and stigma are threatening its future. But sex workers have risen up, reclaiming the unconstrained genius and militancy of whores as the key to social transformation.
This book brings together the voices of sex workers, queer and trans cultural workers, and Amsterdam’s squatting movement, to offer a radical vision of whoring liberated. Whoring Art: A Red Light Anthology is an abundant reimagination of sex work in the city.
Edited by HXSSY, a former Red Light-based queer sex worker-centered collective led by Mercy St. J, Adanya Dunn, and Anna Torres.
Whoring Art will be released 21 May! Orders will ship out after this date.
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: testimonies of the 2024 student uprising in Amsterdam
| 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: squatting and the housing struggle in Amsterdam
| 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.
- Download the PDF for free
Pak Mokum Terug: woonstrijd in een krakende stad
| Page count | 368 |
|---|---|
| Release date | 15 June 2023 |
| Price | € 20 |
Hoe kraak je een pand?
Hoe organiseer je een huurstaking?
Hoe bestrijd je gentrificatie?
Hoe pak je de stad terug?
Pak Mokum Terug: woonstrijd in een krakende stad stelt deze en andere vragen centraal in een verzameling essays, interviews, beeldverhalen en nog veel meer. Het bundelt de inzichten van een grote verscheidenheid aan activisten en groeperingen uit heel Amsterdam, die zich ieder op hun eigen manier inzetten voor de woonstrijd. Gemaakt vanuit activistisch perspectief, en vol met radicale alternatieven, biedt het de broodnodige inspiratie om in actie te komen. Pak Mokum Terug gaat over het terugclaimen van de stad als een gemeenschappelijk toevluchtsoord voor iedereen. Over wat dat betekent, en wat daarvoor nodig is.
Pak Mokum Terug is translated into English as Take Back Mokum. See above!
- Download the PDF for free