Over the summer of 2020, artists’ collective IPIHAN settled at the former Beton Centrale Rotterdam site. They left the comfort of their studios to come up with concepts, artworks and, ultimately, an exhibition, in situ. Artists Pim Palsgraaf, Daan Botlek, Willem Besselink, Ties Ten Bosch, Jordy Walker, Michiel Jansen, Toine Klaassen and Esther Kokmeijer as well as German artist Regina Kelaita, guest artist Leslie Nagel, art and architectural historian Guus Vreeburg, photographer Aad Hoogendoorn, and Marieke van der Lippe took over the abandoned site for a few weeks and created art with what the location had to offer, from materials to space and the dynamics of deterioration. In the case of the ‘Betonplaat’, an enormous central pond in the subsided asphalt proved inspiring. Van der Lippe recorded the whole process with her camera: the comradeship, life in a place with nothing, but where everything is possible and the end results of this artistic, idyllic pressure cooker.
