The Argonauts
September 25, 2026–March 14, 2027
Stichting NDSM-werf presents The Argonauts, a new public artwork by British artist Ivan Morison: a group of three monumental sculptures that introduce strange embodied forms into the post-industrial landscape of NDSM. A gathering of misfits, The Argonauts occupy an uncertain territory between body and the rural, concealment and change.
For the IJssel Biennale (NL), 2025, Morison created earlier versions as temporary sculptures made from hay, offered back to land, cattle and weather. Now re-manifested in the city, The Argonauts are constructed from locally sourced agricultural matter and coated with a hardened mineral skin. The sculptures remain in a state of becoming: an outer surface of apparent permanence enclosing a decaying rural core. The gesture is both playful and brutal: an agricultural body in drag, performing permanence outside whilst slowly transforming from within.
Drawing on queer ecological thinking and the dynamics of relational power, The Argonauts emerge from research into Amsterdam's queer communities and the landscapes surrounding the city. This shaped the project through questions of closeness, trust, transformation and difference; not as subjects to be represented, but as lived experiences that can give form to sculpture.
As Ivan Morison puts it: "In a city where public space is increasingly smoothed and controlled, the work offers something more unruly and alive: a visually arresting intervention that invites new ways of being together in public. Together, the sculptures gather like mutant relics of an agricultural carnival, caught between protest and performance.
Here, sculpture is not monument, but masquerade.
Not endurance, but entropy.
Perhaps the most radical act might simply be
to rot
together
in plain sight."
About Ivan Morison
Ivan Morison is a British artist whose practice explores the thresholds between architecture, sculpture and bodily encounter. Developed from the collaborative practice he shares with Heather Peak, his work approaches sculpture as a social and ecological condition shaped through labour, materials, and the negotiations of shared space.
About Stichting NDSM-werf
Stichting NDSM-werf curates and takes care of the monumental outdoor space of NDSM as a cultural wharf where public character, creative experimentation and polyphony are central. The foundation develops and presents site-specific installations and artworks by and with artists, designers and architects. More information can be found at ndsm.nl.
The Argonauts are made possible by the Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst, BPD Cultuurfonds & Mondriaan Fund, courtesy Clint Roenisch Gallery.
