Aarhus’ mobile city hall tower merged politics and dance based on the belief that democracy must move to stay alive, and institutions must dance to reach the people. For several years, the tower was stationed at the Chocolate Factory, where breakdance battles served as arenas for councillors and citizens to debate through movement instead of words. This evolved into a new democratic practice that spread to other cities. Council votes were decided through dance battles, where spin moves became arguments, freezes marked reflection pauses, and the best solution was the one that made the entire floor move in unison.
Aarhus’er #1
Kristoffer Ørum & Emilio Hestepis: Aarhus’er #1 Kunsthal Aarhus closed on 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.
With thanks to Katrine Malinovsky, Mathias Borello, Hannah Mathiesen Keegan, Michael Bolt Fisher, Salling, Batch Productions, Brian Sørensen, Tania Ørum, and many more.
