Bruges Triennial 2018: Liquid City

The Bruges Triennial 2018, themed Liquid City reaches back to 2015 edition, which was a reflection on the city as a megapolis: “What if the 5 million visitors to the city decided to stay?” This edition takes a step further: how flexible, liquid and resilient can a historic city like Bruges be in an age when nothing seems to be certain any longer? None other than Zygmunt Bauman, prophet of the permanent crisis in the West, devoted his final book to this phenomenon, a year before his death in January 2017. In Retrotopia, Bauman invites the reader to question the dynamics of our society, as well as the metaphor “liquid” itself, the contemporary era as a time of transition, which today stands in stark contrast with the institutional framework that once formed a safe environment for our (grand)parents. Each institution in turn, whether the government, the church, political parties, insurance companies or banks, have lost the public’s trust. This renders society particularly vulnerable to fear-mongers.

This world is changing rapidly. Established ways of thinking and forms of life are under pressure. What does the future hold?

The Bruges Triennial 2018 co-curators Tilll-Holger Borchert and Michel Dewilde invited international artists and architects to think about these issues. Many of them sought inspiration in the city that is literally crisscrossed and surrounded by water. The waterways that once earned Bruges its international renown, become a metaphor for Liquid City. Works of art, installations and meeting places have been put up in the city centre. They form a free hospitable route that brings people together in unexpected spots. That is one of the main objectives of the Bruges Triennial 2018: generating encounters, challenging people not only to view the artworks but also to experience them and to become part of the creative process.

Participating internationally renowned architects include Kunlé Adeyemi, (Nigeria/Netherlands, NLÉ Architects), who designed the third version of MFS – Minne Floating School for Bruges, selgascano (Spain) who created the new swimming pavilion for Brugians and visitors alike on the city canal, and OBBA (Korea) who worked together with Bruges-based Architectuuratelier Dertien12 to construct The Floating Island, a meandering walkway on the water. Climate change and environmental issues are addressed through the installation of the Bruges Whale by StudioKCA (US), INFINITI²³ designed by Peter Van Driessche of Aterlier4 (Belgium) suggests tiny housing situated on the water whereas the Aerocene project by Tomás Saraceno (Argentina) invites us to look to the sky. A very different approach is offered by Brussels-based collective Rotor who presents a museum dedicated to the Chinese Mitten Crab in the Poortersloge and an exotic eatery at the beach in Zeebrugge. raumlabor (Germany) has been working with local youths on their House of Time, a continuous project of building, experimenting and hands-on experience and the Belgian collective Ruimteveldwerk have persuaded the inhabitants of one of the historic almshouse complexes to help create their G.O.D. project. Further installations along the arts trail are created by artists such as Wesley Meuris (Belgium), Renato Nicolodi (Belgium), John Powers (US), Jarosław Kozakiewicz (Poland) and Monir Shahroudy Farmanfarmaian (Iran).

Additional art works, designs, models and documentary materials of all the participants are presented in the free Liquid City exhibition in the Poortersloge, the central information point of the Bruges Triennial 2018.

A further exhibition is located in the Church of the Great Seminary. Architectures Liquides, curated by Abdelkader Damani, is a selection of impressive visionary architectural models from the FRAC-Centre collection in Orléans (France). 

The bilingual catalogue (Dutch/English) with contributions by Till-Holger Borchert, Michel Dewilde, Abdelkader Damani, Tom Trevor, Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Marc Van den Bossche ea. and photography by Iwan Baan is available at the Triennial information points, arts bookshops and online.

Bruges Triennial 2018: Liquid City is open daily until September 16.

Opening hours for the exhibitions and some installations: 12–6pm

Free of charge