The Ocean In Which We All Swim

OPEN24 explores water as a unifying force between humanity and nature, shaping pasts, presents, and futures. How can architecture adapt to water and future landscapes, and how can this connection inspire the industry towards a sustainable future?

A liquid journey

In a compelling exploration of hydro experiences, OPEN24 ventures onto a liquid journey unfolding as a canvas on which architecture and water coalesce, threading together the individual and collective.
Through myriad ways of seeing, sensing, and knowing from emerging and established positions, OPEN24 foregrounds environmental, geo-political, historical and architectural lenses to carve out the contours of our planetary futures.

Curators

OPEN24 is curated by
Karen Kjærgaard, Aarhus School of Architecture
Margarida Waco, Royal College of Arts, London
Simon Strøyer, Tideland

CURATORIAL STATEMENT

Curator

Karen Kjærgaard

Co-curator

Margarida Waco

Co-curator

Simon Strøyer

THE OCEAN IN WHICH WE ALL SWIM

Ebbing, dripping, evaporating, crystallizing, and fluctuating across time and space, water emerges as a transnational force connecting humans and nonhumans. As a primordial substance interweaving past, present, and future life worlds, it moves through and across, scars and imprints bodies, buildings and landscapes.

In a compelling exploration of hydro experiences, OPEN24 ventures onto a liquid journey unfolding as a canvas on which architecture and water coalesce, threading together the individual and the collective.

“We are of consequence to one another – the river, its body, your body and mine.
How we embrace the world and enact our desires upon it through our practices
of thirst and quench, desire and sate, determines the world we live in and how
we know it anew, as a relative.” (Natalie Diaz)

Through myriad ways of seeing and sensing from emerging and established positions, OPEN24 foregrounds architectural, environmental, geo-political and philosophical lenses to carve out the contours of our planetary futures.

The festival aims to reflect a balance between real and speculative narratives across built, natural, and aqueous environments, mapping a solidary web of interconnectedness that mirrors the duality of creation and chaos intrinsic to water.

Karen Kjærgaard, Margarida Waco & Simon Strøyer

THE DANISH ARTS FOUNDATION SUPPORTS OPEN24

The Danish Arts Foundation generously co-funds the development of new curatorial talents as part of developing of the OPEN24 programme.

With the appointment of two architects and former students at the school, Margarida Waco and Simon Strøyer, OPEN24 creates a curatorial concept in a process between the school’s curator and two external advisors.

With OPEN Architecture Festival, Aarhus School of Architecture wish to develope new formats for architectural dissemination.

THE THEME