In November, Daniël de Jong and Bliss Orr will present their ongoing research project Maritime Heterotopias in the corner room of Bureau Europa. The project focuses on the lives of people working within the cruise industry and explores how they experience their work, living environments, and the world beyond.
Heterotopias 2
The start of new memories
Maritime Heterotopias is an ongoing research project built around the lives of those embedded within the cruise liner industry. Developed through research with Rotterdam based mariners,
retirees, ship workers, and researchers the exhibition takes the form of detailed drawings framed within custom-built structures.
The work draws on the concept of the Heterotopias: physical places that function as "countersites," worlds within worlds that mirror, invert, or upset ordinary social rules. In doing so, the project explores how social and architectural structures are constructed, experienced, and imagined, both at home and abroad.
The project was initiated by Daniël de Jong and Blise Orr. The research is deeply supported by contributions of retired sailor Jan Egberts, the Maritime museum Rotterdam and the ss Rotterdam. This is rendition features a new sound piece by Irish Poet and writer Charlie Jermyn, focused on maritime voyages recorded especially for the exhibition.
On Sunday 11 October, the Artware Foundation is organizing a short event centered on the Heterotopias project by Blise Orr and Daniël de Jong. From 12 a.m. to 2 pm, as part of the Archive Fever project, we will be holding an informal discussion with the artists, a number of guests and members of the public interested in the topic, exploring how the re-shaping of different types of information and documentation can lead to a different way of ‘re-remembering’. The discussion will take place in the library at Bureau Europa.
Date 10 October untill 8 November 2026
Location Bureau Europa, platform voor architectuur en design
Admission free
Image: Olly Geary