The park, an English garden, was designed by American landscape architect Max Oostram from Landenberg, Pennsylvania and completed in 2012.

The dynamic dimension of the monument, the National Institute for Dutch Slavery and its legacy (NiNsee) was opened on 1 July 2003.

Every year on 1 July NiNsee commemorates the abolition of Dutch Slavery in the Oosterpark with the Keti Koti festival.

[1][2][3] The Oosterpark also contains a memorial to Theo van Gogh, a film maker and controversial columnist who in 2004 was murdered nearby by a Muslim extremist.

Along the park towards Linnaeusstraat (close to the Royal Tropical Institute) there are a number of grey heron nests.