A closer reading of the floating gardens

Radna Rumping returns to the Floating Gardens of Amsterdam Oost: the rafts of plants that Robert Jasper Grootveld, life artist and anti-smoking magician, began building in the 1950s, bobbing on polystyrene foam bound with fishing nets. They still drift at Entrepothaven, Panamakade, the Nieuwe Vaart and Wittenburgervaart, home now to birds, bees and mussels, and long since entangled with many other hands than his.

The exhibition centres on a collage made from photographs taken during a swim out to the gardens at Entrepothaven, with and by Lorenzo García-Andrade Llamas, designed in collaboration with Nomas de Murias. A booklet designed by Katherina Gorodynska holds an essay structured around three places where the gardens survive, and a series of photographs traces the research from the archive to the present day.

The research was supported by the Framer Framed x UvA Political Science Fellowship 2026. The show is part of Small Miracles, Plein Theater's interdisciplinary co-creation programme, and hangs in the theatre café.