Halfway Point
Group Show
C3 Studios, Rotterdam
When the World Ends only babies should float
Rooted in historical painting, myth and narrative, ‘When the World Ends Only Babies Should Float’ imagines a survival pod for the innocent to outlive the world as it descends into ecological chaos. Based on the so-called survival of a baby ‘Beatrix de Rijke’ during the 1421 Sint Elizabethan flood of the Biesbosch National Park, this work looks for a way to offer care to a future generation facing climate collapse. The part crib, part life-vest, part wearable home becomes a companion, the user breathes life into the pod by inflating it and in return the pod holds and cares for its user. By embodying protection in soft, creaturely form, it reflects on the strange acceptance of the climate crisis in our collective imagination, asking what survival might mean if tenderness, rather than control, were our guiding perspectives.
Baby Beatrix
The paintings 'The miraculous rescue of a child during the St. Elizabeth's flood' by Johannes Hinderikus Egenberger ( created between 1837 and 1897), 'A Flood', by John Everett Millias
(created in 1870), and 'The Inundation of the Biesbosch' by Lawrence Alma Tadema (created in 1856) and many more painted depictions of Beatrix are stories of a past told with care and attention, immortalising and celebrating her, and putting the weight of the disaster on her shoulders. These paintings became combinations of trauma, myth, fear, and hope. Below was my own version of Beatrix, floating through a flood in the urban landscape of Rotterdam.
'The cleansing of Rotterdam, specifically Beurs', 2025, Oil pastel on paper, 297 x 420mm.
Analysing sleeping positions to base the survival pods form off.
Layering these isolated sleeping positions in the form of a book 'Baby Sleeping, Moving, Twisting & Turning.'
Using these layered forms to inspire initial pastel survival pod design.
Layering these isolated sleeping positions in the form of a book 'Baby Sleeping, Moving, Twisting & Turning.'
Using these layered forms to inspire initial pastel survival pod design.
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Another sleeping position analysis with Jodi, who ultimately became my Baby Beatrix.
The second set of layered forms became a book called 'Jodi Sleeping, Moving, Twisting & Turning.
The oil pastel drawings that came out of these layered slow shutter photographs shaped the final inflatable structure.
The second set of layered forms became a book called 'Jodi Sleeping, Moving, Twisting & Turning.
The oil pastel drawings that came out of these layered slow shutter photographs shaped the final inflatable structure.
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