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ARTS & COLLECTIBLES

A HUMAN TAPESTRY IN MOTION

The Family of Migrants opens at Rotterdam’s Fenix Museum as a powerful photographic journey celebrating the shared human experience of migration across time, borders, and generations.

1. Dorothea Lange, United States, 1936. c Library of Congress.jpg

Dorothea Lange, Migrant Mother
[Florence Owens Thompson and her children], Nipomo, California, United States, 1936.
c. Library of Congre

 

With its sweeping vision and historic resonance, The Family of Migrants emerges not only as an exhibition but as a global portrait of humanity in flux. Inspired by Edward Steichen’s landmark 1955 photographic opus The Family of Man, which captivated millions at MoMA and beyond, this new exhibition is one of the opening offerings at Rotterdam’s Fenix Museum—a space that itself is steeped in the legacy of movement. In a time when migration headlines often skew impersonal and politicized, Fenix reframes the narrative with emotional urgency and curatorial grace.


Curated by Hanneke Mantel, Fenix’s Head of Exhibitions and Collection, the exhibition assembles nearly 200 photographs by 136 photographers from 55 countries. Spanning the years from 1905 to the present, the collection embraces documentary photography, intimate portraits, and photojournalism drawn from an array of sources: international archives, museums, image banks, social media, and the press. From early black-and-white images to contemporary color photography, each photograph becomes a node in a sprawling network of human experience.

2. Steve McCurry, Pakistan, 1985. c Magnum Photos.jpg

Steve McCurry, Sharbat Gula,
Afghan Girl. Nasir Bagh refugee camp, Pakistan, 1984.
c. Magnum Photos.

 

The emotional centerpiece lies not in spectacle but in nuance. Viewers encounter Dorothea Lange’s iconic Migrant Mother (1936), Florence Owens Thompson’s worn gaze embodying the exhaustion of the Great Depression; Steve McCurry’s Afghan Girl (1984), a green-eyed Sharbat Gula caught between innocence and trauma. But alongside these famed images are quieter
revelations—contributions by photographers such as Lewis Hine, Chien-Chi Chang, Fouad Elkoury, Yasuhiro Ogawa, and Ata Kandó—images that speak to both rupture and resilience, sorrow and solidarity.

Themes of love, family, separation, and reunion unfold across the galleries, underscoring Mantel’s belief in photography as a democratic and deeply human medium. “The Family of Migrants has been developed over five years of research, exploring photographs on the theme of migration from all over the world,” she notes. “Migration shapes the world, separating and connecting people, but when we talk about migration the focus all too quickly shifts to figures or politics, rather than people.”

3. Alfred Stieglitz, United States, 1907.jpg

Alfred Stieglitz, The Steerage, United States, 1907.

4. Haywood Magee, United Kingdom, 1956. c Getty Images.jpg

Haywood Magee, Caribbean immigrants arrive at
Victoria Station, London, after their journey from
Southampton Docks, United Kingdom, 1956.
c. Getty Images

6. Chien-Chi Chang, United States, 1998. c Magnum Photos.jpg

Chien-Chi Chang, A newly arrived immigrant eats
noodles on a fire escape, United States, 1998.
c. Magnum Photos.

 

Indeed, the exhibition is as much about storytelling as it is about photography. A companion book published by Hannibal Books expands this narrative thread with essays by authors and thinkers including Dutch-Iraqi writer Rodaan Al Galidi, Syrian–Canadian activist Danny Ramadan, Indian-born British chef Asma Khan, and Chinese-American novelist C Pam Zhang. The publication—available in English, French, Arabic, and Dutch—reinforces the exhibition’s universal reach.

Housed within a historic 1923 warehouse once used by the Holland America Line to usher millions of emigrants across the Atlantic, the museum’s physical setting becomes part of the exhibition’s gravitas. Architect Ma Yansong and his firm MAD Architects have reimagined the space with fluid geometry and dynamic verticality. The double-helix Tornado staircase spirals through the museum like a metaphor for passage—upward, outward, transcendent. Standing atop the viewing platform, one peers over Rotterdam, a city shaped by over 170 nationalities and a legacy of departures and arrivals.

The Family of Migrants is not a lament. It is a celebration—of resilience, of shared humanity, and of the beauty found in movement. At its core, it is a reminder that behind every journey is a story, and behind every story, a face not unlike our own. For collectors of meaning and memory, it is an exhibition that lingers long after the final photograph.

Ilvy Nijokiktijen, Ukraine, 2022. Twenty-oneyear-
old Tanya says goodbye to her boyfriend Volodimir. He has boarded a train to Kramatorsk to fight Russia c. VII / Redux.

5. Ilvy Nijokiktijen, Ukraine, 2022. c VII, Redux.jpg
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