Brenda Poels will become chair of Kunsthal Rotterdam's supervisory board on 1 December 2026, succeeding Baharak Sabourian after eight years in the role. The appointment brings a new chair with experience in public administration, organisational consultancy and cultural governance, including a previous supervisory role at Rotterdam's Arminius debate centre.

_{Image: Portrait of Brenda Poels, incoming chair of Kunsthal Rotterdam's supervisory board.}

ROTTERDAM, 3 November 2026 - Kunsthal Rotterdam has announced the appointment of Brenda Poels as its new supervisory board chair. Poels will take over from Baharak Sabourian, who is stepping down after completing the maximum eight-year term.

The supervisory board oversees the Kunsthal's governance, strategy and financial continuity, working alongside the institution's executive management. Its members perform their duties on an unpaid basis.

Experience in public and cultural organisations

Born in 1970, Brenda Poels is a business administration professional and organisational adviser with experience across government, public institutions and the cultural sector.

Her career includes work for various Dutch ministries and government agencies, the National Committee for 4 and 5 May, which coordinates the Netherlands' annual remembrance and liberation commemorations, and the Cooperation Organisation for Vocational Education, Training and the Labour Market (SBB).

She has also held positions connected with Museum Huis Doorn and Kasteel Amerongen.

In Rotterdam, Poels previously chaired the supervisory board of Arminius, the cultural and public debate centre on Museumpark. She completed her second term there in September 2026.

A new chapter for Kunsthal Rotterdam

Poels says the Kunsthal's varied exhibition programme and its relationships with cultural partners in Rotterdam and internationally were important reasons for accepting the position.

General director Marianne Splint welcomed the appointment, citing Poels's administrative experience, knowledge of the cultural sector and connection with Rotterdam.

Sabourian, who also works as Head Legal Retail at Rabobank, has chaired the supervisory board since December 2018. During her eight-year tenure, Kunsthal Rotterdam continued to develop its exhibition programme, presenting art, photography, fashion, design and other cultural subjects to a broad audience.

The appointment comes as the Kunsthal prepares its 2027 exhibition programme, which includes presentations by Monira Al Qadiri, Jean Jullien, Luigi & Iango and Anish Kapoor.

Who sits on Kunsthal Rotterdam's supervisory board?

Alongside incoming chair Brenda Poels, the supervisory board consists of Karin van Baardwijk, CEO of Robeco; Marloes Krijnen, adviser and supervisory board member; Cye Wong-Loi-Sing, creative director at Brand New Guys; and Roger Tan, executive director of Stichting digiGO.

The supervisory board operates separately from the Kunsthal's day-to-day executive management, which is led by general director Marianne Splint and business director Renée Jongejan.

Poels officially assumes the chairmanship on 1 December 2026.

Further information about the appointment is available in Kunsthal Rotterdam's announcement.

ROTTERDAM, 8 September 2026 – Rotterdam night mayor Thys Boer has received the 2026 Rotterdam Culture Prize, while Unity in Diversity Rotterdam has been awarded the Doro Siepel Prize. Culture alderman Joan Nunnely presented the municipal awards on Tuesday 8 September during the opening of Rotterdam’s cultural season at Theater Zuidplein.

_{Image: Thys Boer wins the Rotterdam Culture Prize 2026, while Unity in Diversity Rotterdam receives the €10,000 Doro Siepel Prize. Photo: Laura Siliquini} 

Thys Boer receives Culture Prize

Thys Boer receives the Rotterdam Culture Prize for his contribution to the city’s night culture. As founder of Stichting N8W8 R’dam and in his role as night mayor, he has worked to bring artists, cultural organisations, nightlife businesses, residents and the municipality into conversation with each other.

His work has helped give Rotterdam’s night culture a more visible place in the city’s wider cultural landscape. The award comes with €5,000, which is intended to be spent on a cultural project within the winner’s field of work.

“Thys Boer has given Rotterdam’s night culture a clear voice and a permanent place in the city,” says culture alderman Joan Nunnely. “Unity in Diversity makes sure that creators and stories from different communities are seen and heard. Both broaden Rotterdam’s culture and bring together people who might otherwise never meet.”

Unity in Diversity wins Doro Siepel Prize

The Doro Siepel Prize goes to Unity in Diversity Rotterdam, the foundation established by Jeanthalou Haynes and Houcem Bellakoud. The organisation works to give artists, stories and talent from different Rotterdam communities greater visibility, often through cultural events.

Among its recent projects was the third edition of the African Food Festival, held in Museumpark this summer with food, music, art, fashion and discussions. During Rotterdam Art Week, the Unity in Diversity Art Collective also created a medina of artists’ studios at Fenix, where visitors could meet artists and see their work taking shape.

The Doro Siepel Prize is intended for a Rotterdam cultural organisation or individual that succeeds in reaching new audiences. It keeps alive the ideas of Doro Siepel, the former director of Theater Zuidplein.

Alderman Joan Nunnely called the winners of the Doro Siepel Prize, Unity in Diversity founders Jeanthalou Haynes and Houcem Bellakoud, earlier that day to share the news. Photo: Laura Siliquini

Rotterdam Culture Prize continues city tradition

The Rotterdam municipal executive awards the Culture Prize each year to someone who has made an exceptional contribution to culture in the city. The distinction was previously known as the Cultuurpenning, or Culture Medal.

Alongside the €5,000 project contribution, the winner receives a medal with a wearable pin. Boer received the award on stage at Theater Zuidplein during the opening of the new cultural season.

The recognition places Rotterdam’s nightlife firmly within the city’s cultural conversation, rather than treating the night as something separate from theatres, museums, festivals and other established cultural institutions.

Doro Siepel Prize includes €10,000

Unity in Diversity receives €10,000 with the Doro Siepel Prize, as well as a travelling trophy created by Rotterdam artist Tiwánee van der Horst.

The award focuses specifically on reaching audiences that may otherwise be less visible within established cultural institutions. Unity in Diversity’s programme combines art, food, music, fashion and community stories, while creating opportunities for emerging makers to meet new audiences across Rotterdam.

Nunnely describes both winners as organisations and individuals who widen participation in Rotterdam culture and create connections between different parts of the city.

HAPPENING 4 NOV & 11 DEC '26 | Choreographer Cheroney Pelupessy brings her new dance production Draagkracht to Rotterdam twice this autumn, with performances at Theater Zuidplein on 4 November and Theater Rotterdam on 11 December. Seven women take the stage to explore the stories of women from Indonesia, the Moluccas and the former Dutch East Indies whose roles in war, colonialism, resistance and family life have often remained outside written history.

Seven women carry untold histories

Draagkracht begins with a question: what happens to a history when nobody writes down your name?

Pelupessy looks at women from Indonesia, the Moluccas and the former Dutch East Indies who cared for families, endured upheaval, resisted, organised and took risks during periods of war and colonial rule. Their individual names and experiences may rarely appear in official histories, but the production asks whether something of those lives can still be passed between generations.

Seven women with Indonesian, Moluccan and/or Indo backgrounds perform the work: Cheroney Pelupessy, Romee van de Meent, Moya Wenno, Noenoni Loasana, Yasmin Diktas, Babette Schouten and Nona Embsen.

Their bodies are not used simply to illustrate events from the past. Instead, Pelupessy treats the body itself as a carrier of memory, asking what later generations inherit through ways of caring, enduring, moving and responding, even when the original stories were never formally recorded.

Memory moves through the body

Pelupessy’s movement language combines contemporary physical dance with influences from traditional Indonesian and Moluccan movement forms. In Draagkracht, that vocabulary becomes a way of approaching histories that written sources cannot fully recover.

The title itself carries that idea. The Dutch word draagkracht can refer to the ability to bear or carry something. Here, it becomes both physical and generational: what can a body carry, and how much of another generation remains present in the people who come after?

At Theater Rotterdam, the production is described as an ode to women who were indispensable during periods of war, colonisation and resistance but were rarely publicly recognised. The theatre describes the choreography as drawing on both contemporary dance and traditional Indonesian movement forms.

“We often don’t know their names. But we do carry them,” Pelupessy says of the women who came before her. Her aim is to make visible what may have survived through bodies and families even when words were absent.

From Mama'ku to Draagkracht

Pelupessy is a choreographer, dancer and artistic director of Stichting KETURUNAN. Her work repeatedly returns to bodily memory, cultural inheritance and the question of how experiences move between generations.

Her earlier multidisciplinary project Mama'ku grew from her own family history and the relationship with her mother. That work later formed the basis of the documentary Mama'ku – Van Jakarta tot de Molukken, which received the Gouden Kalf van het Publiek for the most-visited Dutch documentary in 2026.

Draagkracht broadens the perspective. Rather than beginning with one family story, it creates space around a larger group of women whose lives intersect with Indonesian, Moluccan and Dutch colonial histories.

Pelupessy was also nominated in 2026 for both the Nederlandse Dansdagen Innovation Prize and the Gieskes-Strijbis Podium Prize. Theater Rotterdam is among the organisations supporting her and creative producer Gi Au-Yeung through the Fonds Podiumkunsten Nieuwe Makers programme.

Two Rotterdam performances

Rotterdam gets two opportunities to see Draagkracht during its 2026 theatre run.

The first is at Theater Zuidplein on Wednesday 4 November at 20:30 in the Kleine Zaal. Standard tickets currently cost €19.

The production then returns to the city on Friday 11 December at 20:15, this time at Theater Rotterdam, TR25 Schouwburg. Tickets there currently range from €10 to €20, with reduced rates available for visitors aged 30 and under and Rotterdam Pass holders.

That second Rotterdam performance also brings the production into one of the organisations involved in Pelupessy’s development as a maker, adding another local connection to a work concerned with what gets remembered, what disappears from view and what later generations continue to carry.

How to get there

The 4 November performance takes place at Theater Zuidplein, Gooilandsingel 95, 3083 DP Rotterdam, next to Zuidplein metro and bus station. Tickets and current information are available through Theater Zuidplein.

The 11 December performance takes place at Theater Rotterdam, TR25 Schouwburg, Schouwburgplein 25, 3012 CL Rotterdam, in the city centre. Tickets are available through Theater Rotterdam.

ROTTERDAM, 7 September 2026 – Dutch artist Marie Louise Elshout will present her four-part work Hunters at Dawn at BIG ART Rotterdam from 11 to 13 September 2026. Presented by Berlin-based janinebeangallery, the 4.5-metre-wide work combines a dreamlike birch forest with darker ideas around vulnerability, control, nature and human intervention.

Hunters at Dawn at BIG ART

Hunters at Dawn consists of four canvases measuring a combined 180 by 450 centimetres. Elshout uses pencil, charcoal, acrylic and oil paint alongside real leaves, creating a work in which drawing and painting meet physical material from the natural world.

The scene unfolds somewhere between night and day, dream and reality. A luminous birch forest is rendered in turquoise and deep greens, while an intense, almost artificial neon pink spreads across the forest floor. At its centre are two girls wearing hare masks and white dresses. At first, the figures give the scene the appearance of a strange fairy tale, but a small hare hanging from a string introduces a more unsettling element.

That shift is central to the work. What initially appears playful gradually raises questions about vulnerability, control and violence, leaving the meaning open rather than directing you towards a single interpretation.

A forest between dream and unease

Fairy tales, mythology, folklore and superstition regularly appear in Elshout’s work. Here they function as forms of cultural memory, carrying ideas about fear, power, transformation, care and danger from one generation to another.

The hare masks also blur the division between human and animal identity. A mask can conceal and protect its wearer while simultaneously transforming them, making the relationships between the figures less fixed than they initially appear.

The work has connections with a longer artistic tradition of the fantastic and the uncanny, from Jheronimus Bosch and Francisco de Goya through Symbolism to the psychologically charged paintings of Paula Rego. Elshout does not directly reproduce these artists or their imagery, instead developing her own visual language around similar tensions between familiar stories and unsettling experiences.

Within that language, the forest is both a setting and a psychological space. Its unnatural pink floor is particularly important, referring to an artificial environment created by humans and introducing an ecological dimension to the painting.

Marie Louise Elshout in her studio in Rotterdam 2026

Nature becomes part of the painting

That relationship between nature and human intervention also appears in the materials themselves. Pencil and charcoal sit alongside acrylic and oil paint, while real leaves have been incorporated into the surface. Nature therefore appears twice, both as the subject of the forest and as physical material within the artwork. From a distance, the four canvases combine into an approximately 4.5-metre-wide woodland landscape. As you move closer, that apparent unity breaks apart into individual lines, layers of colour, marks and small details.

The work is designed to reveal itself gradually. Beauty and discomfort, nature and artificiality, and familiarity and estrangement remain present at the same time, with the fairy-tale imagery opening broader questions about power, vulnerability and our relationship with the natural environment.

BIG ART comes to Rotterdam

Elshout’s work forms part of the twelfth edition of BIG ART, which is coming to Rotterdam for the first time. From 11 to 13 September, the exhibition takes over the historic Codrico factory on Katendrecht.

More than 100 large-scale works will be presented throughout the former industrial complex, spanning painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, light art, video and installation. The factory’s raw architecture becomes part of the setting rather than simply functioning as a neutral exhibition hall. 

Hunters at Dawn can be found in Building 3, Section B, No. 3.25.

More information about Marie Louise Elshout and janinebeangallery is available at https://www.janinebeangallery.com/.

Visiting BIG ART Rotterdam

BIG ART Rotterdam runs from Friday 11 to Sunday 13 September 2026, with the exhibition open daily from 11:00 to 18:00. 

The move to Rotterdam gives the event a particularly fitting setting. The Codrico factory is one of Katendrecht’s most recognisable industrial landmarks, with its silos and green cube forming part of the Rijnhaven skyline. The event also offers a rare opportunity to enter parts of a factory complex that have generally not been accessible to the public. Works will be shown both inside the buildings and around the site. 

For Elshout, that industrial environment places the artificial colours and natural imagery of Hunters at Dawn within another landscape shaped by the relationship between human activity and the physical environment.

How to get there

The Codrico factory is on Katendrecht at Rijnhaven Zuidzijde 15, 3072 AJ Rotterdam, beside the Rijnhaven and close to Fenix. From Rijnhaven metro station, you can walk towards Katendrecht via Brede Hilledijk and Veerlaan; the site is also within walking distance of the restaurants and cafés around Deliplein.