ROTTERDAM, 10 March 2026 – A new Laxmi Manuela mural at EDGE Coolsingel is turning a stretch of building hoarding on the Coolsingel into a quieter kind of public statement. The Rotterdam artist’s latest work places rest, motherhood and unseen labour right in the middle of one of the city’s busiest routes.

_{Laxmi Manuela mural at EDGE Coolsingel in Rotterdam. Photo: Brian Lubking}

If you pass the construction site opposite City Hall, you will now see a large mural (muurschildering) of a woman asleep on a bench. It is part of the fifth round of the EDGE Coolsingel Artist Competition, Show Me Your (He)Art, and it shifts the mood of the street away from speed and productivity, even if only for a moment.

Manuela’s image is deliberately still. In a part of Rotterdam usually defined by movement, traffic and ambition, her sleeping figure makes space for recovery and asks you to look again at the kind of care work that often goes unnoticed.

Rest as a public statement

In her work, Manuela explores themes including women’s strength, identity and care. This mural focuses on the pressure many women face to remain constantly available, whether for family, work or the people around them, while the effort behind that care is rarely acknowledged.

“Rest is not a luxury,” says Laxmi. “It is a basic need. Women do not always have to be productive to be valuable.”

Laxmi Manuela mural at EDGE Coolsingel in Rotterdam. Photo: Brian Lubking

A mural in the middle of the city

By placing the work in public space, Manuela brings that conversation directly onto the street. Between passers-by and construction traffic, the mural creates a pause and introduces softness into an environment more often associated with pace and performance.

Manuela is a Rotterdam-based artist whose practice includes both large-scale murals and more intimate studio work. Across her art, she explores identity, culture and social questions through personal experience, with themes such as sexuality, queerness, self-discovery and women’s strength returning throughout her work. Her projects have appeared in public space in the Netherlands and abroad, including in India, Italy, and Germany.

What EDGE Coolsingel is doing here

The artwork is part of the wider EDGE Coolsingel development at Coolsingel 75. EDGE says the future building will offer around 21,500 square metres of office space and is being developed with a strong focus on energy efficiency, sustainability and user wellbeing, including a Net Zero Carbon target and WELL Outstanding certification.

The Show Me Your (He)Art competition gives local artists the chance to show work on the site’s hoardings while construction continues. Earlier selected artists include Melissa Moria, Tjado Astrando Boerleider, Phlox van Oppen and Jlmer Konjo. The project runs from November 2024 until August 2026, the mural size is 11 by 2 metres, and the main prize is a permanent installation at EDGE Coolsingel.

How to get there

You will find the mural at Coolsingel 75, Rotterdam, opposite Rotterdam City Hall in the heart of the city centre. It is an easy walk from Stadhuis metro station and also close to Rotterdam Centraal if you are coming in by train and walking down the Coolsingel. Trams and metro lines through the centre stop nearby, and the artwork sits in one of the most recognisable stretches of central Rotterdam.

More information

You can find more about the competition at www.showmeyour.art. More about Laxmi Manuela is available at www.laxmimanuela.com and on Instagram at @laxmimanuela.

ROTTERDAM, 3 March 2026 – Artists Silvia B., Evelyn Taocheng Wang and Anne Wenzel have been shortlisted for the Hendrik Chabot Prize 2026. Their work will be shown together at Chabot Museum Rotterdam from 12 April to 13 September 2026, ahead of the prize presentation later that month. The Hendrik Chabot Prize is awarded to artists who have made a distinctive contribution to Rotterdam art and/or the city’s wider art climate. The prize comes with €10,000 and puts this year’s three nominees firmly in focus.

The shortlist brings together three very different artistic voices, which is part of what makes this prize worth watching. Rather than rewarding one narrow type of practice, the Hendrik Chabot Prize tends to highlight artists whose work adds something substantial to Rotterdam’s cultural life.

This year’s nominees are Silvia B., Evelyn Taocheng Wang and Anne Wenzel. Their work will be presented in a joint exhibition at Chabot Museum Rotterdam, and the museum says the show will be accompanied by a publication on the nominated artists and the jury report.

Silvia B. shortlisted for Hendrik Chabot Prize 2026. Photo: Sol Archer

Evelyn Taocheng Wang shortlisted for Hendrik Chabot Prize 2026. Photo: Sol Archer

Anne Wenzel shortlisted for Hendrik Chabot Prize 2026. Photo: Lotte Stekelenburg

Three artists in the spotlight

For Rotterdam audiences, the exhibition matters just as much as the award itself. It creates a chance to see how three distinct practices sit alongside one another in the same space, and how each artist has helped shape the city’s artistic conversation in a different way.

The exhibition runs from 12 April to 13 September 2026 at Chabot Museum Rotterdam. That gives visitors a long window to experience the shortlisted work well beyond the announcement moment.

How the prize fits into Rotterdam’s wider art scene

The Hendrik Chabot Prize now sits within a broader collaboration called The Rotterdam Art Prizes (De Rotterdamse KunstPrijzen), which brings together three separate awards: the Hendrik Chabot Prize, the Dolf Henkes Prize and the Brutus Prize.

Together, these prizes are meant to draw attention to high-quality work by Rotterdam artists at different stages of their careers. The wider collaboration also reflects how the city increasingly presents its cultural recognition as a connected ecosystem rather than a set of isolated awards.

Prize ceremony at Rotterdam City Hall

The three prizes will be awarded together on 21 April 2026 at Rotterdam City Hall. According to the announcement, the presentation will be led by Mayor Carola Schuiten.

The Rotterdam Art Prizes collaboration works with a range of local institutions, including CBK Rotterdam, Chabot Museum, TENT Rotterdam, Brutus, Stichting Droom en Daad and Stichting Volkskracht.

What to watch next

The shortlist announcement is the first moment. The exhibition is where the conversation really starts. If you follow Rotterdam’s art scene closely, this is the point where you can begin looking at the three practices side by side before the jury makes its final choice.

More information is expected soon via: www.rotterdamsekunstprijzen.nl

How to get there

Chabot Museum Rotterdam is in the Museumpark area, one of the easiest cultural clusters in the city to reach. If you are coming by metro, Eendrachtsplein is a practical stop, followed by a short walk through the museum district. Cycling is usually the smoothest option, especially if you want to combine the visit with another stop nearby in Museumpark.

ROTTERDAM, 10 March 2026 – Museum Rotterdam has received a major new acquisition: a 1921 portrait of Rotterdam banker Willem Westerman by Jan Toorop. The work adds a new layer to the city’s story, linking art, financial history and Rotterdam heritage in a single image.

Who was Willem Westerman?

The portrait matters well beyond the art itself. Through Westerman, Museum Rotterdam can now tell a sharp Rotterdam story about ambition, risk, power and the fallout of financial crisis. Willem Westerman (1864–1935) was president-director of the Rotterdamsche Bankvereeniging, known as Robaver, then based on the Boompjes and an important predecessor of ABN AMRO. Under his leadership, the bank grew quickly, but his risky credit policy also helped drive the banking crisis of 1924, after which the national government had to intervene.

That makes Westerman a striking figure in Rotterdam history: a symbol of economic boldness, but also of how quickly financial confidence can crack when risk outruns restraint.

A portrait with national weight

Museum Rotterdam says the portrait is significant not only for the city collection, but also at national level. It captures Westerman in 1921, at the height of his power, three years before his forced departure in 1924.

For the museum, that timing gives the work unusual force. This is not just a portrait of a banker. It is a portrait of a man standing at a decisive moment in Dutch financial history.

Why Jan Toorop matters here

Jan Toorop (1858–1928) is regarded as one of the most influential Dutch artists of his time. Born in the former Dutch East Indies and trained in the Netherlands, he developed a wide-ranging body of work that moved across symbolism, pointillism and realism.

In this later portrait, Museum Rotterdam sees a more psychologically charged approach. The result is not simply a likeness of Westerman, but an image that also reflects status, authority and the tension around a public figure whose role would later be viewed very differently.

Business, art and the Kröller-Müller circle

Westerman’s decision to commission Toorop fits the business and cultural circles he moved in. Through Robaver, he extended major credit to Wm. H. Müller & Co., the company of Anton Kröller.

At the same time, Kröller’s wife, Hélène Kröller-Müller, was building one of the Netherlands’ most important art collections, in which Toorop was strongly represented. Against that background, Museum Rotterdam says it is plausible that Westerman chose a painter from that same cultural orbit.

A rare ensemble in its original frame

What makes the acquisition even more special is that the portrait, a work on paper, has survived in its original late Jugendstil frame. Together, museum staff describe the work and frame as a rare ensemble.

That gives the object added value as material heritage. You are looking not only at an image, but at a complete historical presentation that has remained intact.

A Rotterdam story with present-day echoes

Museum Rotterdam curator Liesbeth van der Zeeuw says the portrait creates an opening to talk about the role of a Rotterdam banker in the national banking crisis of 1924.

“It is not only a powerful portrait of an influential banker, but also a key object for talking about responsibility and power, and their impact on society,” she says.

Since the banking crisis of 1924, the Netherlands has lived through several more financial crises. That gives this acquisition a contemporary edge too. The museum can use it to tell a story that is historical, but still feels very current in a city shaped by commerce, risk and reinvention.

A future place in the new city museum

Museum Rotterdam says the portrait of Willem Westerman will take an important place in the collection and in future presentations. Together with the Municipality of Rotterdam, the museum has already secured a permanent location at Het Steiger for its future city museum.

That means this acquisition is also part of a larger shift. As Museum Rotterdam works towards a new home, objects like this help define what that next chapter will be: a museum rooted in Rotterdam’s past, but clearly speaking to the present.

How to get there

ROTTERDAM, 4 March 2026 – North Sea Round Town has opened its 2026 Open Call, inviting makers and organisers to pitch music-driven projects for this summer’s festival. If you have an idea that could bring something fresh to Rotterdam, applications are open from 4 March until 1 April 2026.

This is aimed at people who want to do more than slot neatly into an existing programme. North Sea Round Town is looking for projects that surprise audiences, challenge expectations, and add something new to the city’s musical energy.

What kind of projects NSRT wants

The call is open to innovative musical or music-related ideas. That could mean a concert, performance, dance battle, exhibition, workshop, jam session, or music film, as long as the project is musically relevant and fits the spirit of the festival.

In other words, this is not only for bands or standard live sets. If your idea connects music to place, community, movement, image, or experimentation, North Sea Round Town wants to hear about it.

A festival route into Rotterdam

The practical attraction here is not just exposure. Selected projects have the chance to collaborate with North Sea Round Town, with the festival supporting the project and giving it a place within the programme.

That makes this less of a generic talent call and more of a way into Rotterdam’s summer cultural calendar. If your project works best when it meets an audience in the city itself, this is the kind of framework that can help it land properly.

Dates for the open call

The Open Call opened on 4 March 2026 and applications can be submitted until 1 April 2026.

More information and the application route are available here:
https://www.northsearoundtown.nl/open-call-pitch-maak-deel-uit-van-nsrt-festival/

Why this matters for Rotterdam makers

North Sea Round Town has always worked best when it feels plugged into the city rather than dropped onto it. That is why an open call like this matters. It gives Rotterdam-based makers, as well as artists with a strong idea for Rotterdam, a way to shape what the festival becomes.

And for audiences, that usually means the most interesting part of the programme is not always the biggest name. Sometimes it is the project that came in sideways, took a risk, and made the city feel a bit more alive for a night.