New museum in Rotterdam looks at migration through the lens of art

Rotterdam’s skyline has been transformed by a giant spiralling metal walkway known as the “Tornado”.

The daring piece of architecture towers over the dockside where millions of Europeans once boarded ships bound for a new life in the United States.

It is part of Fenix, a new art museum focusing on migration, which opens in the Dutch city on Friday.

It will tell the global story of people who travelled from and to Europe.

“As long as we exist as human beings, we move and we migrate and we will always keep on doing that and that’s what we show in Fenix . We show that there’s a migration story to tell in every family,” says the museum’s director, Anne Kremers.

The decision was made to look at migration through the lens of art as in its biggest exhibition, All Directions, which features the work of more than 100 artists.

“These artists, they’re either are migrants themselves or they did a lot of research and they will show you what it feels like to leave your home, to find a new home, to say farewell, to have homesickness, to miss your foods, and that is very emotional,” says Kremers.

Hanneke Mantel, who heads both the exhibition and collection at Fenix explains that All Directions is divided into six themes.

“It’s migration, identity, fortune, border, flight, and home, and these are themes that I really truly believe play a role in everybody’s lives in some way,” she says.

Fenix opens as both human migration and anti-immigrant sentiment are on the rise.

The United Nations says the number of people living outside their country of birth has nearly doubled since 1990.