The rap group OLC works at Hasle Care Home, where they run a hair salon and perform raps about elder care. The group began in the geriatric ward at Aarhus University Hospital, where chief physician and MC Dorte ‘Dr. Beat’ Nielsen introduced rap therapy. They became nationally known with their 2012 track SharedWelfareDream, which brought prestige to care work through solidarity rap and rhymes delivered by elderly hip-hoppers from the care home. Today, positions at the home are highly sought-after by younger rappers.
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 loca l 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 Malinovsky, 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
