‘Port Rhythms’ shows how working in container transshipment in the Port of Rotterdam affects the lives of workers. The labour runs 24/7, and employees try to keep pace — with their bodies, personal lives, and families, attempting to match its relentless rhythm. Sometimes they manage, sometimes they don’t. As you watch and experience where friction arises — physically, financially, or socially — you hear the voices of office staff. Through voice-over, they explain how they try to match workload to workers’ limits using individualized timetables. This reveals a neoliberal logic — not only imposed, but also reproduced by the workers themselves.
Bio
Arjanne Schaaf began her MA in Visual Ethnography in 2011, but pressed pause for fourteen years before completing her project on rhythm, time, and bodily adaptation. In the meantime, she built a career in youth care as a yoga and massage therapist and spiritual caregiver. Across these seemingly different worlds, her work is guided by one question: How do large systems manifest in individual bodies and everyday routines? Whether in the port of Rotterdam or in therapeutic spaces, she explores how ideologies such as neoliberalism are embodied — and where resistance might emerge.
