Ship

During the Wereld van de Witte de With art festival in 2005, Johan Rumpt presented his work Ship. This steel toy sea vessel, measuring 5.20 x 1.65 x 2.45 meters, was strikingly placed in a regular parking space on Witte de Withstraat in Rotterdam. With this intervention, Rumpt playfully and absurdly shifted both scale and function: by “parking” a ship where cars normally belong, he created a poetic collision between the city’s maritime identity and its urban infrastructure. Ship was curated and produced by Mothership as part of “September in Rotterdam,” an initiative by Rotterdam Festivals, with Mothership also overseeing the participation process.