A new Immigration Museum Chronicle Century Global Journey Over the Hundred Years
“As long as we exist, we will move, move,” Phoenix Director Anne Kremers told Observer. The recently opened museum in Rotterdam (the city host of 170 nationalities itself) focuses on immigration, although the agency will not reflect the change as socio-political stabilization escalates and the agency will not reflect the change. “In that sense, it’s not a political museum,” Kremers said of his reaction to the news cycle. “Immigration is actually a story about people. It has nothing to do with facts and numbers.”
The city’s port area (Katendrecht) is a suitable place to accommodate museums dedicated to the people’s movement. The restored fixed cargo warehouse, which is housed today in the museum, was once the headquarters of steamed car vehicles between the Netherlands and the Americas. The port of Rotterdam is a link between the journeys of millions of immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Today, Fenix is a sprawling and glowing place with spacious windows connecting visitors to the vicinity, respecting a complex issue in a comfortable setting. “The exhibition design is very downplayed,” Kremers noted. “We want visitors to see the buildings and look at the art.”
At the heart of the space is the “Tornado”, a double helix that rises from the ground floor to the roof, with the constantly reflecting surface creating a fascinating mirror twist. At its peak, it unfolds it onto a platform of observation that is clearly visible in the city. There are two stairs; along the way, you can change the route. Of course, a bit of drifting in the crossover is a symbolic passing ceremony here.
See also: JMW Turner, 250 – The Lasting Legacy of Prince of Rock
In addition to the exhibition, we also desire to unite people who have experienced immigration or dislocation in the space. Plein is a free public plaza that hosts events with various community organizations. (As André Aciman wrote, “The customs you feel most comfortable most are those you never know until you see something completely different from others.”) There is some language exchange, which is a large kitchen that can cook local cuisine and special events during World Refugee Day and Lunar New Year.
But art is the pillar. The first floor contains two temporary exhibitions, a photography exhibition, “Immigration Family” and a huge installation, “The Maze of Suitcases”, while the gallery upstairs displays the works of Fenix’s collection, which have been growing steadily over the past five years. “All Directions” showcases approximately 150 pieces drawn from the series. Mise-en-Scène, which spans 6000 square meters, will undergo a slight change every few months through new acquisitions. “The migration is a never-ending story,” Kremers said. “We’ve covered a lot of things, but there are always stories we don’t tell. So if we get it, it should be a good addition to the artists and artworks we already have in the collection.”
Fenix commissioned several works, including a blue beaded hand sculpture ensemble by French artist Beya Gille Gacha, a means of transcending language communication, and the migration pattern of American artist Hugo McCloud on canvas made of iron plastic bags, highlighting a symbolic symbolic, carried with desperate sprint and dispatch capabilities.
The museum impressively samples different kinds of stories, different scales of migration disruptions, and different regions affected by recent and past turmoil, occasionally drawing inspiration from easier descriptions.
The first object installed was part of the Berlin Wall, which split the Communist Party from capitalist West Germany between 1975 and 1989. It talks to the works of Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota Status (passport)In 2023, her travel documents for a German lover she found at a flea market with stamps visiting each other on both sides of the wall. Here, these documents are suspended in signature-intensive threads in the artist’s literal and existing paralysis.
Many works are related to the Netherlands. Willem de Kooning is the local son of Rotterdam. Wainscott’s people1969, on display here. In his 20s, he illegally smuggled a ship on an American ship from this port: his desire to advance as a famous artist because of his reputation as abstract expressionism.
Another Dutch midstream station, Rineke Dijkstra, shows through her long-term series Almerisa1994 to present. It began with her subject of the same name six. After escaping from Bosnia, she lives in a refugee shelter in Leiden. At that time, Dijkstra asked all kinds of children in the shelter to wear the best clothes so that she could take pictures. Almerisa wore patent leather shoes that were too tiny, petite from the sitting bass, and her feet had not reached the ground. Dijkstra was particularly moved by her and started taking pictures of her every few years. The series has the continuity of observing the effects of someone’s age, change, and growth (Nicholas Nixon) Sister Brownif there is a more painful origin story). Normal background and chair are the unique constants in each image. Fenix owns the series and gets a new photo every few years. Almerisa, who still lives in the Netherlands, attended the opening ceremony.
In a vision of a more mixed Dutch identity, Hair bundle2017 – 2020, Benin-born Meschac Gaba recreates the outline of Rottra’s iconic buildings designed based on braids used in African hair salons. It’s a clever, clever way to incorporate different traditions and places with talents into different places. (“We won’t shy away from the dark side of immigration, but there’s still a lot of colors. I think this invites visitors to take a closer look.” New Dutch Views2018, covers a double-layer view: the mosque’s carpet interior juxtaposed with brick buildings and sloping roofs are visible through open windows and linked to the reality of Muslim practices within a single frame.
Various works turn the representative burden of immigration into creativity. Ukrainian artist Maria Kulikovska left Crimea in 2014 and annexed Crimea in 2014, re-signing and residency documents (Landes-kultur Gmbh from Ukraine and letterheads from the British Embassy) were trapped in the background. This determination to reshape also lags behind Brazilian artist Alexandre de Cunha Kentucky (Naples)2020. It looks like a large-scale textile in the distance, a custom mop-head curtain nodding to thousands of immigrants who have worked on a grateful cleanliness to survive.
The migration of Belgian artist Francis Als is more literal geography2007-2008, inspired by military maps. Instead, land deprived of the country’s name, marked with binary files: Utopia/dystopia, other/self, object/theme. The renamed map emphasizes the arbitrary nature of designating the world as “other”, which is our knees-the distrust of us not anywhere.
French artist Jr criticized this split line Giants, Kikito and Border Patrol, 2017. The photo depicts a shocking live work in which he blows up a black and white image of a one-year-old Mexican boy, Kikito. The image of Kikito is vaguely visible in the huge proportion of the U.S. Guard along the border with Mexico. This is a work designed to haunt the Guards from the American side of the divide. Kikito’s eyes were frustrated, as if he was staring at the guard, his oversized hands clasped on the top of the border fence as if he would lift himself up.
One of the most disturbing works is by Indian artist Shilpa Gupta Untitled (door)2009. Twice every half hour, a swinging iron door slammed, sounding loud like gunfire, shocked visitors and significantly damaged the walls. It exhibits demarcation violence, and its erosion of its walls shows that nothing is indestructible.
Spread throughout the process, offsetting the artwork, is a dark and surprising historical artifact. These included the 19th-century ankle bondage used to prevent enslaved Africans from launching an uprising while crossing the Atlantic Ocean, and the bathroom doors in about 1940, beginning with American apartheid. There was a boat crossing Europe from North Africa, and was taken from the cemetery by Ufficiio Dogane donated the huge porto porto empedocle sezione operativa territoriale lampedusa. There are two characters with 19th-century toy pistols, there are two characters, one white man kicks Asians. The grip of the pistol reads the Chinese must go.
In this way, “From all directions” live up to its name, presenting ugly and possible people: the burden of exile, the sacrifice of leaving, the accidental gambling, the sorrow of dislocation, the loss of the diaspora, the hope of achieving a safer life, a better life, a better or worse life will occur when leaving. “We want to share various stories around the theme of migration, but we don’t want to give you the answer,” Kremers said.
