In the summer of 1999 writer Marie Louise Schipper and photographer Leo Erken of NL12 spent some weeks in the Amsterdam swimming pool ‘het Zuiderbad’. The pool is located in the centre of Amsterdam at the ‘Museumplein’ behind the ‘Rijksmuseum’.

The people in these pictures, taken under water, are early-morning swimmers. People who in everyday life probably never socialize. Maybe they won’t even recognize each other when they pass by in the street. They are a close community when they swim together between 7 and 8 am.

During the renovation of the pool the pictures were hanging on the scaffolding around the building. NL12 organised this exhibition with the support of the town-council 'Amsterdam Oud Zuid' and the Amsterdam Fund for the Arts.