FROM 10 JUL '26–30 JAN '27 | Nieuwe Instituut opens SIDELINED. Ruimte voor anders samenzijn to the public on Friday 10 July, turning its Deck into a free alternative sports bar. The exhibition by curator Amanda Pinatih and social designer Gabriel Fontana explores how sport, design and architecture can create new forms of togetherness, so fewer people end up watching from the sidelines.
Image: SIDELINED transforms the Deck of Nieuwe Instituut into an alternative sports bar (impression). Photo: Nieuwe Instituut.
After earlier presentations at the Venice Architecture Biennale and Concéntrico Festival in Spain, the project now lands in Rotterdam. At Nieuwe Instituut, visitors encounter changing team structures, transforming uniforms, playful rules and a version of sport where winning is not necessarily the point. Radical, I know.
Sport without fixed rules
Sport can create strong bonds, but it can also draw firm lines between insiders and outsiders. Stadiums, sports fields and sports cafés bring people together, while also reinforcing who belongs, who competes and who is expected to cheer from the edge.
SIDELINED asks what happens when those rules are redesigned. The exhibition treats sport as a social and spatial system, shaped by architecture, design, uniforms, teams and rituals. By changing the conditions of play, Fontana’s work opens up other ways of moving, cooperating and meeting.
At the centre are three alternative team sports developed by Fontana: Multiform, Anonymous Allyship and Fluid Field. These are shown on large screens inside the installation.
The sports use transforming outfits, unfamiliar team divisions and fields that change shape. Players are pushed away from fixed positions and predictable roles, making room for cooperation, improvisation and new forms of orientation.
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An alternative sports bar
The Deck above the foyer becomes an alternative sports bar, complete with familiar references to the world of sport. The space was designed by Koos Breen and Jeannette Slütter, who also worked on the graphic design.
Instead of a traditional bar where supporters watch the match and debate the score, this one invites visitors to think about how games are structured in the first place. There are screens, trophies, a sports newspaper and even table football, but everything is slightly off in the best possible way.
The Fluid Foosball Table reworks the classic pub game. Rather than fixed teams and rigid sides, the table introduces a more fluid playing field where those familiar binary structures begin to wobble.
There is also a sports newspaper with conversations involving Queer Gym Rotterdam and Sportcafé Costa del Sol, two Rotterdam places that bring different communities together through sport. That local angle makes the project feel less like a theoretical design exercise and more like something connected to the city outside the museum walls.
Gabriel Fontana’s Anonymous Allyship played at Stadio Pier Luigi Penzo in Venice. Photo: Giacomo Bianco.
Sound, film and new trophies
The exhibition includes a sound work by Luca Soudant, based on recordings from Trans* Pride Berlin 2022. Alice Wong contributes a silent film montage about sport as a space of political resistance and transformation.
The trophy cabinet is also reimagined. Instead of prizes for the strongest, fastest or most dominant players, the trophies connect to Fontana’s alternative sports and reward qualities such as cooperation, improvisation and care.
The question becomes less “did you win?” and more “how did you choose to play?” Honestly, Rotterdam amateur football could use a little of that energy on a rainy Sunday morning, but let’s not name names.
During the exhibition period, Nieuwe Instituut will also organise events and moments where visitors can actively take part in sport and play. These activities are planned for children and adults, with further details to follow through the museum’s programme.
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From Venice to Rotterdam
SIDELINED was originally commissioned by Nieuwe Instituut for the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, where it was presented as the official Dutch contribution in the Dutch Pavilion. The Rotterdam edition follows presentations in Venice and at Concéntrico Festival in Logroño.
The project was curated by Amanda Pinatih and centres on the work of Gabriel Fontana, whose practice investigates how design can make social norms visible and open them up for change.
Aukje Bolle, business director, and Yesomi Umolu, artistic director of Nieuwe Instituut, describe the project as a contribution to the sports summer of 2026, but in the institute’s own way. They frame sport as an architectural system that regulates spaces, forms communities and creates connection.
That makes the exhibition especially timely in Rotterdam. The city loves sport, from stadiums and street courts to gyms, clubs and informal games in parks. SIDELINED asks what those spaces could become if the rules were built around more than competition.
Visit SIDELINED
SIDELINED. Ruimte voor anders samenzijn is free to visit on the Deck of Nieuwe Instituut, above the foyer. The project opens to the public on Friday 10 July 2026 and runs through 30 January 2027.
More information about the exhibition and upcoming activities is available via https://nieuweinstituut.nl/projects/sidelined.
How to get there
Nieuwe Instituut is located in Museumpark, close to Kunsthal Rotterdam, Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen and Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. The museum is within walking distance of Eendrachtsplein metro and tram stop, and easy to reach by bike from the city centre, Westersingel and Witte de Withstraat.
