Along Aarhus Harbour, dockworkers and sailors from incoming ships jointly maintained the worker-run factories. The facades were adorned with patterns inspired by Lagos textiles, geometric designs from Indonesian cargo ships, and calligraphy learned from Filipino dockworkers. Painting was done using surplus paint from ships, mixed in the old boiler houses, with colours chosen collectively based on how the sunlight moved throughout the day. As new ships arrived with crews from Valparaiso, Mumbai or Rotterdam, the look of the factories continuously evolved.
Aarhus’er #1
Kristoffer Ørum & Emilio Hestepis: Aarhus’er #1 Kunsthal Aarhus → 27 June – 2 November 2025
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.
