Happy to be Traveling

After facing a world migration in a tornado shaped building, Ella chose to relax at the Haven Hotel before we went out for a Surinamese meal. I decided that since the Maritime Museum was only one long block away I couldn’t just let it sit there like some gigantic mausoleum containing mysteries begging to be…

A bit of a project, getting to our place in Liege but we are here with a beautiful view from the apartment. Rotterdam -> Brussels Nord -> Liege Gullimins -> Liege St. Lambert -> Rue de Saint Gilles, Liege. The trains were fine but the last bit was a local bus. The transit workers were…

Design to a piece of furniture, in this case a throne, explain why someone might want to migrate.

In one of the video viewing rooms at the FENIX there was an ongoing loop of tsunami footage captured by residents trying to outrace the wave. I suppose the idea was that the instability of the ecosystem is another factor (besides drought conditions) that has to be considered in the rise of migration around the…

In 1955 a famous photography exhibition opened at MOMA in New York called “The Family of Man”.  The FENIX has a space divided into hanging panels displaying 200 enlarged photographs called the Family of Migrants depicting the story of migration. Some of them are recognizable masterworks like Dorothea Lange’s migrant mother escaping the Dust Bowl, and…

The FENIX gives homage to the birds amongst us. Migrants Who Don’t Give a Fuck, 2019 Kiluanji Kia Henda (Angola, 1979) “Towering walls, complicated visa procedures and lengthy asylum processes can make migration impossible. Kiluanji Kia Henda’s flamboyant flamingos defy such barriers. These pink birds, which refuse to be fenced in, symbolise freedom of movement.”

There will come a time, beyond a moon flyby, beyond The Martin, beyond Project Hail Mary…yes, it’s Space migration! Refugee Astronaut IX, 2024 Yinka Shonibare CBE (United Kingdom, 1962) “A lone figure carries a net bulging with belongings – a teapot, Dominoes, a lamp – hastily gathered. The nomadic astronaut is in search of a…

At the FENIX, items must be carefully cleaned. 

When it comes to migration there is always a fantasy of the final trip. The Ghanaian artist Paa Joe (Joseph Tetteh Ashong) is known for his elaborate coffins shaped like objects connected to a person’s life. The one on exhibit at the FENIX seems like a signature Albuquerque goodbye box.  Functional as well as an…

One of the themes throughout the Migration exhibit at the FENIX was the fortification of borders and the closing of frontiers. We’re talking a very contemporary museum. Shilpa Gupta’s “Gate” got a lot of attention. This heavy metal gate mounted beside a wall suddenly swings shut and slams against the wall every thirty minutes. When…

Rotterdam. At the FENIX, a spiraling staircase encased in a shiny, wavy, silvery tube gives the feeling of being swirled up into the eye of a storm. 

Last night after our not-so-great Surinamese dinner, we wandered a bit. Here are some photos. Above: Maybe the “grands” live here?

In one of the convention center size rooms making up the Migrant exhibit at the FENIX is a bus made out of fabric that visitors can walk into. The Bus is the work of an American artist named Red Grooms. Red is from Nashville. He’s estimated that he has traveled by bus twenty-four times to…

Rotterdam, according to some sources, is one of the best places in the world for Surinamese food. Outside of Suriname I suppose. Surinamese food reflects a mix of North African, Indonesian, Indian, Chinese, and a hint of Dutch (Suriname was a Dutch colony at one time). Grubb had a yen to try. We tracked down…

Ella’s already given you an introduction to the FENIX and the exhibit on the first floor of luggage that has traveled through Rotterdam in the last hundred years. The narrative that went with a suitcase that I enjoyed was the one where a gay guy from Rotterdam in the the 1920s made it a habit…