In the late 1980s, workers at Aarhus Shipyard took over production and began transforming container ships into floating forests as part of their sustainable and pleasure-driven approach to construction. The ships’ metal containers were replaced with living trees and plant structures, and the shipyard workers painted graffiti on the tree trunks to serve as navigation markers between different ecosystems. They developed a method for integrating forestry with shipbuilding, turning the container ships into mobile biotopes that dispersed seeds, plant species, and spray paint across continents. These floating forests, with their graffiti-marked hulls, became a celebrated export from Aarhus and inspired ports in other countries to adopt similar models of ecological sea transport. Kristoffer Ørum & Emilio Hestepis: Aarhus’er #1 Kunsthal Aarhus → 27 June – 2 November 2025 → Opening: Friday 27.06.2025, 4:30–7 pm
Aarhus’er #1 is a collaborative exhibition by artist Kristoffer Ørum and rapper Emilio Hestepis. Together, they reimagine the city of Aarhus through hip-hop, DIY culture and artificial intelligence, transforming Kunsthal Aarhus into a fictional version of the city shaped by alternative rhythms, graffiti and speculative memory.
The exhibition presents a 15-metre legal graffiti wall, a giant record player, lo-fi mixtapes, deepfakes, DIY furniture, and historical snapshots from a city that could have been. At its centre is hip-hop—not as a fixed genre, but as a set of evolving local practices. DJing, MCing, breakdance and graffiti appear in distorted, Aarhus-specific forms that blur fact and fiction, protest and play.
The show is the most expansive chapter to date in Ørum’s ongoing counterfactual project Frihed, lighed og hip-hop. But here, that work becomes something new—a shared platform developed in close collaboration with Hestepis, who also contributes an original soundtrack.
Supported by the Obel Family Fund, New Carlsberg Foundation, Danish Arts Foundation, Augustinus Foundation, C.A.C Fonden, Knud Højgaards Foundation, Lemvigh-Müller Fonden, and Spar Nord Foundation.
More info: kunsthalaarhus.dk/da/udstillinger/kristoffer-oerum-emilio-hestepis-aarhuser-1
With thanks to Katrine Mailonovsky, Mathias Borello, Hannah Mathiesen Keegan, Michael Bolt Fisher, Salling, Batch Productions, Brian Sørensen, Tania Ørum, and many more.
#contemporaryart #hiphop #aarhus #alternativehistory #exhibition #kunsthalaarhus #FrihedLighedOgHipHop #aarhusernummer1
