Even the City Dreams of Being Another

Even the City Dreams of Being Another is part of the exhibition At the Edge II, presented at Skene in Malmö. Curated by Kevin Malcolm (Vermilion Sands), the show brings together works by Jamila Drott, Maxime Hourani, Maia Torp Neergaard, and Kristoffer Ørum. It continues a line of work on identity, architecture and urban development begun in At the Edge I (Copenhagen, 2024), now more firmly rooted in Malmö’s local context.

Kristoffer Ørum’s contribution imagines Malmö as shaped by the afterlives of its industrial past and alternative forms of civic imagination. Set in three symbolic locations—Folkets Park, Drottninggatan 6, and a speculative Malmö City Hall—the work blends archival research with fiction to propose a reparative reading of urban space.

In The Old Gate at Folkets Park, Malmö’s working-class history is reactivated through DIY sound system cultures. Retired factory workers repurpose their technical knowledge to build speakers and maintain audio infrastructure, passing skills across generations.

At Drottninggatan 6, the building itself becomes a collaborative canvas, shaped by decades of creative reuse. Layers of paint, repurposed tools, and collective modifications create temporary architectural shifts, reflecting the rhythms of everyday life and shared space.

Malmö New City Hall presents a playful, speculative bureaucracy infused with hip-hop culture, where city planning unfolds through rap battles, breakdancing, and public meetings turned into performative spaces of collective decision-making.

The works form part of Ørum’s ongoing series Även staden drömmer om att vara en annan ("Even the city dreams of being another"), offering glimpses of civic and technological alternatives rooted in joy, memory, and shared invention.

At the Edge II is supported by Kulturrådet, Malmö stad, Region Skåne, and Statens Kunstfond.