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The Volkstuin index

Cultivates lithopunctures

2026
Volkstuinvereniging Tuinderslust, Rotterdam Noord, NL
Research residency

Funder: Amarte Fonds development grant
Host: Nature of Rotterdam
Expert: Esther Hoogendijk, artist
Links → Amarte Fonds → Nature of Rotterdam → Esther Hoogendijk

The Volkstuin Index begins with a question carried over from Civic Anchors, the practice's Prix de Rome inquiry: can a material hold the soul of a site - carry, in stone, clay, and root, an image of its many facets? Here the question narrows to one place and turns practical. How does this ground tell itself?

The Volkstuinvereniging Tuinderslust, in Rotterdam-Noord, is a modest patchwork of plots, sheds, and bell-hung gates. The ground beneath drops through a whole history: a worked crust of wood chips and brick, a clay seal turning from ochre to grey, and under it the peat of a drowned alder-willow carr - the garden resting some 2.5 metres below sea level, on land that sank in place rather than washing away. The Index reads it as a single continuum, layered at once by geology, by the seasons, and by the gardeners, none on the same clock, none ever finished.