Containing Nature

Your View

Project

Experience Center

Location

Portlantis, Rotterdam

Realization

2025

Amidst nature, nestled between the bustle of the port, stands the striking Portlantis building. Here, visitors can explore a large-scale exhibition about the port of today and tomorrow. AMORV was invited to create a unique counterpoint in the temporary exhibition space: an artistic and poetic installation, offering a contrast to the vibrant and interactive spectacle elsewhere in the building.

What inspired us? The view. From Portlantis, you overlook a landscape of rolling dunes, swaying marram grass, and the endless sea. That horizon—the meeting point of land, water, and sky—became the guiding principle of our exhibition. We brought that feeling indoors, allowing it to echo in form, color, and rhythm. A dream assignment, in which we were given complete creative freedom and the trust of the Port of Rotterdam to conceive the concept, design the exhibition, and produce it ourselves.

Back and forth, like rolling waves, the city and the port dance in ever-changing patterns towards the sea.

Sometimes carving a path through existing nature, at other times making space for new landscapes to dance along freely. This dynamic tension is at the heart of the exhibition Containing Nature, in which Rotterdam-based photographer Carel van Hees, alongside photographers from the collection of the Nederlands Fotomuseum, explores the evolving relationship between city, port, and hinterland.

The port, once a natural tidal landscape, has long been a focal point: the beating heart of the city, the driving force of Rotterdam’s economy, the logistical epicentre of Europe. From this constantly shifting centre, the panorama is in constant motion, offering sweeping vistas that capture the ongoing dialogue between humanity and nature.

At the core of the exhibition, we encounter the work of photographer Martien Coppens. His images portray the raw, untamed nature in perpetual flux – a force that city, port, and people must continuously relate to. The sturdy wooden blocks on which his work is mounted echo the man-made port, that has nestled itself like a cluster of rugged oil rigs within this natural maritime environment.

The framed horizons of this panorama narrate the story of the port’s surroundings. Here, we find works by Frits J. Rotgans, renowned for his meticulously detailed panoramic photographs. We also see images by Carel van Hees, documenting the departure of the port from the historic city centre. In its wake, people followed, seeking leisure and refreshment along the waterfront. The works of Aart Klein and Jan Pieter Strijbos remind us that the interplay between built environment and nature is timeless.