Many museums around the world that focus on migration tend to frame the subject through the history of a city or nation, often at the risk of creating exhibition programs that lean too heavily into identity politics or view the issue primarily through a political or historical lens. But the soon-to-open Fenix museum in Rotterdam—one of Observer’s most-anticipated art museum openings of 2025—takes a different approach. Rather than limiting itself to regional narratives, Fenix promises to examine migration through a transcultural perspective, exploring its themes through the lens of art as a universal phenomenon that has accompanied human movement and survival since the beginning of time.
Slated to open in May, Fenix will be housed in a sprawling 16,000-square-meter warehouse built in 1913, now radically transformed by the acclaimed Beijing-based architecture studio MAD Architects. Funded by the Droom en Daad Foundation—a private philanthropic initiative directed by Wim Pijbes, former director of the Rijksmuseum, and backed by the Van der Vorm family, which controls Holland-America Line and HAL Investments—the museum will serve as a centerpiece in the ambitious regeneration of Katendrecht. Once Rotterdam’s red-light district and home to the oldest Chinatown in continental Europe, Katendrecht is being reimagined as a cultural hub. As part of its commitment to fostering the city’s creative-led development, the Droom en Daad Foundation is also establishing a new venue for The National Museum of Photography, set to open in the same district late this year.
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Fenix’s building embodies a layered history, deeply tied to Rotterdam’s identity as a port city shaped by migration. Originally constructed for storage and shipping operations, it played a crucial role in the Holland America Line, the Dutch cargo and passenger service that carried millions of migrants to and from these very docks throughout the 19th and 20th Centuries.
“The story of Fenix is inextricably linked to Rotterdam and its many communities, but that story is also the world’s. It is a story of arrivals, departures and constant change to face the future,” explained Anne Kremers, Fenix’s director, when Observer caught up with her a few months ahead of the official opening. “‘Migration is a human story, and everyone has a connection with this theme. Our goal is to show that this is truly universal.” At the end of the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th Century, Rotterdam was a key player, with more than 3 million people departing from its docks. “Some people were fleeing, others were ‘Happiness seekers.’ We all want a better life. We don’t want to take a side: because of the topic, there are so many stories to tell.”
To avoid the risk of polarization in addressing such a delicate subject, Fenix has chosen to approach migration through the universal language of contemporary art, assembling a polyphony of voices from artists who explore the theme from diverse perspectives and lived experiences. Rather than imposing a singular narrative, the museum’s approach allows the artworks to speak for themselves, presenting migration as a shared human condition that transcends borders and historical moments.
The museum’s inaugural collection exhibition, “All Directions: Art That Moves You,” will showcase 150 artworks and objects spanning historical and contemporary contexts. The roster of participating artists includes some of the most established names in the international art world—Francis Alÿs, Max Beckmann, Sophie Calle, Honoré Daumier, Jeremy Deller, Shilpa Gupta, Alfredo Jaar, William Kentridge, Kimsooja, Steve McQueen, Adrian Paci, Ugo Rondinone, Yinka Shonibare and Danh Vō, among others. “We wanted to touch upon many different sides of migration,” said Kremers. “For this reason, it’s not us as the curator telling the public what they should think about the theme, but the artists are the ones who will be on the stage, sharing their experience with migration, their observations and their research, showing that it’s not one story but many.”
Notably, every work in the show belongs to Fenix’s collection, which began in 2018 and has grown through strategic acquisitions over the past six years. “We started an extensive international art collection, bringing together works from artists all over the world, all engaging with this crucial theme,” Kremers said, emphasizing that the museum has relied on advisors across different regions to ensure that the collection remains truly global in scope. “In this way, the spectrum of stories we tell is incredibly broad, and we can really show that migration is an intrinsic part of humanity—who we are. As long as we exist, we move, and we will keep moving, searching for better conditions and pursuing happiness.”
To further underscore migration’s deeply personal and historical dimensions, the exhibition pairs artworks with personal objects and documents collected from Rotterdam’s diverse communities. These artifacts, donated by local residents, introduce intimate, lived experiences into the narrative, presented alongside major historical objects such as a section of the Berlin Wall. “By pairing an artwork with a historical artifact, you highlight the timelessness and universality of certain aspects of migration—patterns that repeat across different ages and geographies,” Kremers added. Occupying the first floor of the museum, the exhibition is designed as a dynamic and evolving presentation, with artworks and objects rotating periodically to foster new dialogues and perspectives on migration’s enduring impact.
On the ground floor, Fenix will have a dedicated photography exhibition space, set to open with “The Family of Migrants,” a show inspired by Edward Steichen’s 1955 MoMA exhibition “Family of Man.” This ambitious presentation gathers 194 photographs taken by 136 photographers across 55 countries, offering a global perspective on migration through a mix of documentary images, portraits and journalistic photography sourced from international archives, museum collections, image banks and newspapers. “We titled it to show that migration is part of human life,” said Kremers. The exhibition seeks to highlight the commonalities in migration experiences across time and geography, emphasizing its universality as a fundamental human condition.
On the opposite side of the ground floor, a more intimate and interactive installation will immerse visitors in a labyrinth of stacked suitcases—each carrying a personal story. “We traveled with our team through the country, and we also went to New York and Canada to collect suitcases but, especially, to collect the stories that go with the suitcases. Over 1,500 people donated their suitcases to Fenix, accompanied by all those stories of farewell, of happiness, of starting a new adventure. It’s going to be a very interactive installation.” The space will be anchored by a large-scale neon work by Alfredo Jaar, designed to visually embody the movement of people across borders and through time.
Architecturally, Fenix reflects the very themes it seeks to explore. The redesign, conceived by MAD Architects, is nothing short of dramatic. As Ma Yansong explained during a recent presentation in New York, the structure was inspired by the imagery of a spiral and tornado, evoking a sense of perpetual movement between time and space. Marking MAD Architects’ first cultural project in Europe, the renovation allows visitors to physically experience this ceaseless flow of migration and history. A double-helix staircase rises from the ground floor, carrying visitors upward and outward onto a rooftop viewing platform that seems to hover over the city. “The Tornado is all about the future but rooted in the past. For me, it’s a metaphor for the journeys of migrants who passed through this building,” Ma Yansong said.
This design reinforces Fenix’s commitment to actively engaging with Rotterdam’s diverse cultural communities, a guiding principle since the museum’s earliest stages of development. To that end, the ground floor will include a 1,000-square-meter space called “Plein,” envisioned as a dynamic, community-led venue for large-scale events organized by the city’s many cultural groups. It will serve as a hub for the exchange of food traditions, community gatherings, Dutch-language lessons and live performances, fostering an inclusive environment where different backgrounds and histories intersect.
“It won’t be Fenix organizing here, but the communities in the city themselves, who will be able to use the space to celebrate, for example, Chinese New Year, World Refugee Day or Surinamese Independence Day. There are over 179 nationalities in the city, and there is so much to celebrate and remember,” Kremers concluded. “‘Plein’ will be the space where people can do it because we want to feel the connection with these communities. We don’t want to be like an international museum planted like an alien in a community. We want everyone to be proud of this museum.”
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