In 1937, at a time when hip-hop culture and the labour movement dominated Aarhus, architect S.R. Poulsen proposed a visionary new city hall. The 220-metre tower was meant to centralise administration and impose a vertical hierarchy in contrast to the horizontal network of street-level breakdance battles. But Poulsen lost the decisive breakdance battle, and instead, the spirit of hip-hop culture – with self-built structures and allotment-style associations – spread throughout the city.
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.
