FENIX is asking for a total of 2,000 suitcases from all over the Netherlands. The suitcases are building blocks for a large maze, which can be visited permanently after the museum opens at the end of 2024. The maze symbolises what it can mean to pack your bags and start all over again. FENIX is building a collection around the theme of migration, with international contemporary art, photography, historical objects as well as suitcases. This is the first time a museum in the Netherlands has asked for suitcases and (family) stories as part of its collection on such a large scale.
Bottom-up collecting
FENIX visited six provincial towns last spring to collect suitcases. Since then, 1,200 have been collected. Now FENIX will visit Almere, Leeuwarden, Eindhoven, Heerlen, Zwolle and Middelburg on the weekends of 11-12 and 18-19 March. On Saturday 18 March, the collection day is at SCHUNCK.
Suitcases in all shapes and sizes welcome
Suitcases from all over the world reach FENIX during the collection days. These range from luxury cabin trunks from the 1920s to contemporary rolling suitcases and backpacks. Among the suitcases already donated is Daisy's. She donated her great-uncle's suitcase. As an eight-year-old child, her uncle came to the Netherlands from Indonesia on a so-called repatriation flight in 1958. Isis handed over her great-grandmother's suitcase to FENIX; a hundred-year-old one from Croatia. Anisa entrusted her large red rolling suitcase to the collection. With it, she came from Pakistan four years ago.
The suitcase collection day at SCHUNCK in Heerlen is on 18 March from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Pre-registration is not necessary, but highly desirable via fenix.nl/en/suitcases
For questions, email koffers@fenix.nl, or call 010-3134760.
