A Tale of A Tub

The Drain
BRIANNA LEATHERBURY
February 15 – May 4, 2025

Guest writer: ANNIE VERDOOLD

In the winter of 2022, when heating prices skyrocketed to unaffordable heights, Brianna Leatherbury began producing makeshift solar panel heaters from salvaged construction materials and with tips gleaned from online DIY communities. Eventually, these heaters began doubling as sculptures, continuing Leatherbury’s commitment to revealing the realities of living conditions—and the negligence of those who mandate them from above. In this vein, Leatherbury’s works are often context-specific spatial experiments, that in their formal make-up—plated copper inserted into broken radiator parts, relocated mobile cold rooms, greenhouse humidifiers rigged to purify the inner cavities of auctioned buildings—can be repeated and reconfigured in other places. Through consistently working with the same materials relocated, and dispensing them to alter the physical conditions of a room, Leatherbury tauntingly reveals otherwise hidden currents of exchange at play in any given site.

Cue The Drain: a heating system composed from recycled building materials and appliances, retrofitted into the exhibition spaces of A Tale of A Tub. Opening in the midst of winter, the goal is to warm selected parts of the building for the duration of the exhibition period, after which, the system will be partially reconfigured to be reinstalled each winter until a new heating system is provided. The remaining materials will then be returned to the recycled building market. This isn’t a speculative exercise born from resourcefulness or a showroom for home improvement tips, however. The housing crisis is a heating crisis too, and since it was built in 1922—at a time in which the ‘social’ in social housing simply meant for the people—central heating has always been a central issue of the Justus van Effencomplex as well. On the one hand, it is lauded as the first building of its kind in the Netherlands to have a centralised heating system, on the other, what was once an advancement in modern living conditions now leaves residents without an affordably functioning way of warming their houses in the present day. As a constituent of the complex, the same issue applies to A Tale of A Tub, too.

As for the surrounding area of Spangen, it has long been referred to as ‘the drain’ of Rotterdam, plagued by drug tourism in the 1980s and 90s—for which there was little municipal support and almost no public services—and populated predominantly by working class and immigrant communities. Surely a subtext of this categorisation, the Dutch saying het afvoerputje van de maatschappij—‘the drain of society’—refers to those who are a strain on the housing and social systems; to, effectively, those in need.

In bringing the history of the complex in conversation with the history of the area within which it resides, Leatherbury attempts to navigate the age-old conflict between public and private interests in the creation of social spaces. In the spirit of their dialogical practice, in which conversation figures as a key research tool, this project has been informed by a series of meetings with figures crucial to the social (re)organisation of the Justus van Effencomplex: neighbour and volunteer tour guide Theun Huisman; Eric Smulders, administrative secretary at Woonstad Rotterdam; and Joris Molenaar, lead architect and architectural historian at Molenaar and Co., the studio who oversaw the renovation of the complex in 2009. Additionally, Antonina Iakovleva has worked as a curatorial assistant and key conversation partner throughout the whole process, as has Tomi Hilsee in the capacity of project architect.

Accompanying the exhibition is an interview with Dutch activist, writer and former sex worker Annie Verdoold, who became known in the 1980s and 90s for her actions and community-organising in the district of Spangen, where she fought against the so-called drug tourism plaguing the area—and for the people who are neglected by the system, the ‘most vulnerable’, as calls them. It will be published in our fourth bulletin, alongside a special edition handout compiled by Cultural Workers Unite, which provides key resources for better learning our rights as renters.

Events

Saturday, February 15, 2025, 5:00 – 8:00 PM

Exhibition Opening: BRIANNA LEATHERBURY: The Drain

Saturday, March 29, 2025, 6:00 PM

Guided Tour of The Drain with BRIANNA LEATHERBURY and ISABELLE SULLY

Publications

Brianna Leatherbury: The Drain

Biographies

BRIANNA LEATHERBURY shuffles the spaces of productivity to create dissonant and abstract systems. Guided by personal encounters, they take dialogue as a starting point into statecraft, attempting to interact with and manipulate spatial infrastructures into their own sculptural forms. Their sculptures explore the historic, and at times violent, entanglements of ‘human’ and ‘resource’, identifying and exaggerating their expressions within our present-day industries. Currently based in Amsterdam, they received their BFA from the Cooper Union in New York in 2017 before relocating to the Netherlands to participate in De Ateliers, Amsterdam, from 2019–22. They have recently shown at the 15th Gwangju Biennale, Gwangju; CAPC, Bordeaux; Brunette Coleman, London; and The Hartwig Foundation, Amsterdam.

ANNIE VERDOOLD is a Dutch activist, writer and former sex worker. She became known in the 1980s and 90s for her actions and community-organising in the Rotterdam district of Spangen, where she fought against the so-called drug tourism plaguing the area, acting as the spokesperson for concerned residents on a municipal level. In 1996 she was awarded ‘Rotterdammer of the Year’ for her work.

CULTURAL WORKERS UNITE is a worker-led collective that aims to foster solidarity between precarious workers of cultural institutions in Rotterdam, in order to hold the municipality and the institutions accountable for the improvement and the implementation of the Fair Practice Code.

A House in Spangen
By ANNIE VERDOOLD

I was living in a house, not the house I am in now, but another house in Spangen. I got this house illegally, and I wanted to fight for it, because for the first time in my life I had a place. As a child I lived in children’s homes all over the Netherlands. I was in North Holland, but also in Brabant and in Overijssel. But South Holland, that is re- ally my place now. And when I got this house the landlord wanted to throw me out, because I had squatted it.

You squatted it yourself?

Yes. I squatted it together with another girl, a friend who helped me. But then the landlords came, and they wanted money from me. I said, ‘Okay, I have squatted for three months.’ And, mind you, I had already paid three months rent anyway. I said, ‘Now you come and ask if I want to live legally?’ I told him that he shouldn’t have accepted my rent. At first he brought the police. But I was pregnant, so I said, ‘Okay, come upstairs.’ We used to have these old sliding windows, they had very heavy iron things in them, with ropes, to keep the window up. So I said, ‘I took out the window weight and the first one who comes upstairs will get the window weight in his neck.’ The police actually laughed about it and said, ‘Well, I won’t come upstairs and I’ m not going to fight a pregnant woman.’ A nd they left. Well, then the landlord left too. And I paid my rent every month thereafter. Eventually, he invited me to sign a con- tract and so I did. A real rental contract. Finally, I could go home. You need to keep fighting. Because for the first time in your life you have a contract. I will wage war for Rotterdam, I mean it. Fifty-five years ago, after a long time of squatting, I was finally offered this home in Spangen and it is the first house I had experienced. And when the weath- er was nice, I would sit outside. Then everyone would greet you and I would talk to people. Yes. It becomes your neigh- bourhood. And when I looked out of the window, I could see the Sparta soccer stadium. So I thought, well, from now on I am going to be a Spartan, right?

At the time, I was busy with safety in general. And that relates to many different things. It’s such a broad thing, be- ing safe. It does not only have to do with drugs and alcohol. Simply feeling safe in your own environment, in your place. Yes. In terms of my activism, everything started when I be- came a mother. I first organised for the children, who were at nursery school, when they wanted to take away the play- ing field and cut back on everything. I found other mothers willing to occupy the school for two days. And so we did.

Soon after, I got a group of people together and we start- ed organising actions against the drug tourism taking place in Spangen. Three, four days a week they were with me on the street, under the bridge. It was very cold. But every Frenchman looking for drugs across the border and who wanted to get in, had to go back, because we were blocking the road, so they couldn’t enter.

Annie Verdoold speaks to protesters in The Hague in 1997, as one of the leaders of the National Action Committee for Drug Nuisances.

And how did you mobilise all those people?

Listen, I’ll tell you honestly, it was like a radical honesty. Yes. I think that was it. And because I had a lot of people behind me at a certain point, I had to get publicity. Yes. But how do you get publicity? Nobody knows Annie Jansen, that’s my maiden name. Nobody knows her. So how? How can I do that? I thought, guys, we have to do something. So that the police or the fire brigade comes. Yes, we have to say something. So, in order to change our situation, we had to do something public, we had to become public. And no- body wanted that. Because we have to share what we think, what we stand for, and that is scary. But we had no choice. And so, to get services to actually pay attention, we set fire to a house.

This particular house, it was completely empty. On the backside, the facade had already been removed. And slant- ed support poles were placed against it. But that evening we removed sixteen people from the house. They were just hanging out there temporarily. Sixteen addicts. Removed to a safer shelter. Because you can’t set fire to anything before you first go and look inside yourself. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Then the fire brigade came. Then people. And then I started talking. The fire brigade said to me, ‘Who’s in charge here?’ I said, ‘We don’t have any leaders, but I will talk to you.’ From then on, you couldn’t keep ignoring Spangen, and things slowly started to change.

We then organised another action. On this occasion we removed all the French number plates from their respec- tive cars in the middle of the night, gathered them togeth- er and left them on the sidewalk in front of the city hall the next morning. The pile was so large that it really showed the scale of the ‘tourism’ operations coming across the bor- der and into Spangen.

When did the violence decrease?

That was in 2010, I think. After that you could really say that there were no more actions. Yes. We all had found our own place. Many people were scared and left. Several people went to Spijkenisse. But also, to Nesselande. Vlaardingen. They just couldn’t handle it anymore. Yes. But they already left during the actions. Yes. And at a certain point I start- ed to focus on the national network [the National Action Committee for Drug Nuisances]. Yes. Because I had set up that national network. And action groups were also formed there. Yes. Sometimes they didn’t know what kind of action they could take. We tried many things, but the government just didn’t understand. A bicycle has wheels, right? Well, the problem is that the government always tries to create a new wheel. But look at that first wheel, the spokes in it, just fix those. And then you will see that it will turn again. Because something old is not a bad thing. If I was the may- or, I would at least ensure that there is decent shelter for the people who need it. It’s essential that you feel safe in your environment, in your own environment. And the means for achieving this, not just for me but for others in the neigh- bourhood too, was often to eat together. Because you really can’t do it alone. Life. It’s too difficult.

We’ve been talking for an hour and a half. What time is your husband coming?

Nee joh. Ja joh. An hour and a half! My husband is com- ing at six. But first, I have to eat.

The above text is a transcription from an oral interview with Annie Verdoold, conducted on January 15, 2025, in the cafe- teria of Antonius Binnenweg, Rotterdam. Over the course of ninety minutes, Annie shared stories of life in Spangen in the 1980s and 90s and the community actions waged in search of a safer standard of living for all in the neighbourhood.