For my S+T+ARTS residency on Biodiversity in the Rotterdam Port I am researching sessile organisms in the rotterdam port and the way they build their ecosystems, comparing the immense infrastructures we build in our harbours to the tiny habitats these life forms are creating.
Through researching topics like regeneration of marine life, cybernetic human/non-human communication as well as nature-inclusive engineering I’ve been in contact with many brilliant people over the last few weeks.
Biologist Peter Paalvast has been monitoring the shipworm in the Rotterdam Port area, a species that eats itself into wood, thus destroying the foundations a lot of the harbor area is standing on. He does this by having these wooden contraptions in several parts of the harbor, which he picks up about once a year. These get tested by a radiologist (see the X-ray in the last picture). The shipworm are then visible. In this way he keeps tabs on this species in the port.
Pictures by Adriaan van de Polder.