Bruges Triennial 2018 under the banner of liquidity, including kissing on water, flying cities and ideal hosting spaces

Liquid City / Vloeibare Stad: this is the theme of the Bruges Triennial 2018. The artistic event in the capital of West Flanders reaches its second edition this year and thus addresses the topic of liquidity, through an itinerary of installations that will bring the medieval city alive, endowing it with a strongly contemporary soul aimed at reasoning on a theme that, from Zygmunt Bauman onward, has involved many contemporary intellectuals, who have often received it with negative meaning (but this is not the perspective taken by the Bruges Triennial). The review, curated by Till-Holger Borchert and Michel Dewilde, runs from May 5 to September 19, 2018, and, in addition to the main event, the exhibition of artists in the city center, also includes an interesting calendar of initiatives.

“The world,” the two curators point out, “is in transition. Established ideas and lifestyles are coming under pressure. A state of constant flux, driven by variation, pluralism and ambivalence can lead to uncertainty and even fear. But the 2018 Bruges Triennial adopts the opposite position as a possible beacon, a fluid, open and involved city, an engine of social, cultural and political change. Bruges is a creative melting pot where diversity leads to encounter. A nursery for innovation in an urban environment. In a liquid city, an important role is reserved for the participating citizen.” The belief is that the responsible citizen today actively participates in the city’s social progress and local politics, striving, together with the government, “for a community in which the sharing of experiences, dreams and desires of all city users leads to a fusion of horizons.” Sharing of experiences, dreams and wishes, but also of spaces, which stimulate exchanges and help lay a new urban foundation: “the fluid city, literally surrounded by water that once represented Bruges’ world fame, will become a metaphorical meta-city.”

Liquid City, then, as a symbol of positive social and urban change. Artists and architects participating in the Triennial are therefore called to reflect on the theme of crisis in liquid society, and possible responses around this issue, including through the establishment of cooperative creative processes to create opportunities for encounters. Art will invade public spaces, and at the same time there will be synergies among working groups, including to imagine a new city whose identity and hopes are inspired by works of art.

Protagonists will, of course, be artists and architects, with visionary and futuristic projects: from Jaroslaw Kozakiewicz’s “kiss on water,” a symbol of new and unexpected encounters, to the urban model of Wesley Meuris (who has elaborated a pavilion in which an ideal space for reception is presented), from the floating island of the duo OBBA that reasons about the new dimensions of architecture to Roxy Paine ’s Ground Fault (an installation that instead reflects on the relationship between nature and technology), and again the prototypes for the city flying city by Tomás Saraceno, the colorful pavilion by the Selgascano duo, Monir Sahroudy’s ideal city, Studiokca’s waste whale, and Peter van Driessche’s city on water.

Alongside the main program are the Liquid City exhibition (in the Poortersloge, a hub for information about the event), which explores the themes of the Triennial, and the presentation of the Centre-Val de Loire Frac Collection, with an additional exhibition related to the theme of the liquid city (in the Grootseminarie church and gardens). There is also a packed program of lectures, in which the artists and architects exhibiting at the Triennial will also participate. For all information you can visit www.triennalebrugge.be. Hashtag: #TriBru2018.

Pictured: Studiokca, Sky Scraper (The Bruges Whale), project for the Bruges Triennial 2018 (Spiegelrei, at the Jan Van Eyckplein)

Bruges Triennial 2018 under the banner of liquidity, including kissing on water, flying cities and ideal hosting spaces

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