23-05-2025
A Migration Museum Opens in a Hotbed of Anti-Immigrant Sentiment
A few years after Frank Kanhai emigrated from Suriname to the Netherlands in 1975, his aunt came to live with him. Despite being unable to speak Dutch, she was still determined to make the six-hour round trip to the nearest Surinamese supermarket. So 14-year-old Frank wrote a short note she could show the bus driver.
Today, that note is on display alongside work by Willem De Kooning and Grayson Perry at a new museum in Rotterdam dedicated to human migration. Opened on May 15 by the Netherlands' Queen Máxima, the Fenix Museum is an eye-catching addition to the city's skyline. A 30-meter-high silver staircase, made of 4,000 square meters of polished steel and nicknamed 'the tornado,' erupts from the roof of the former warehouse, an architectural testament to the twists and turns of the migrant journey. Inside, there are works from Syrian artist Abdalla Al Omari and British-Nigerian Yinka Shonibare. One room features a labyrinth made of 2,000 suitcases sourced from migrants to and from Rotterdam.
