In 2008 the Port of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, the largest in Europe, began a dramatic project to extending its land by 20% into the sea. Known as Maasvlakte 2, the construction involved bringing more than 5 million tons of rock from Scandinavia for the construction of dikes and dams, alongside a programme of ecological offsetting. Jorge Satorre’s The Erratic. Measuring Compensation (2009–10) was one of ten artworks produced throughout 2009 in response to Maasvlakte 2. Portscapes was initiated by the Port of Rotterdam Authority with support from SKOR and was curated by Latitudes.

Jorge’s project began with the search for a rock — an “erratic” that would have already been transported to the Netherlands from Scandinavia many thousand of years ago by glaciers during the last ice age. It centred on a three and a half ton boulder eventually found on farmland near Emmen, and concluded in a forest in southern Sweden on January 8th 2010. What lay in between was an often fraught process of negotiation and geological suspense: a symbolic restitution with a very physical manifestation.

The traces of Jorge’s extraordinary project now form a part of the collection of the Museo Amparo in Puebla, Mexico. On September 22nd, 2021, a conversation between Jorge and Latitudes about the commission will be broadcast via the museum’s Facebook page in the framework of El tiempo en las cosas, an exhibition curated by Tatiana Cuevas that is currently on view there. Tune in!