2023
2023
The work presented here was undertaken during the studio founder's tenure at CAF×.
At Venice, Coastal Imaginaries — curated by Josephine Michau — presented a catalogue of seven nature-based design principles for coastal architecture: retreat, elevation, dunes, barrier islands, wetlands, floodplain livelihoods, and aquatic urbanism. The pavilion brought together contributions from a wide range of disciplines, among them Copenhagen Islands, landscape architecture practice Schønherr's research-based scenario for a future Greater Copenhagen, and a large-scale diorama by scenographer Christian Friedländer, whose immersive staging of a coastal landscape gave the exhibition its physical centre; Friedländer's own theatrical installation, Mermaid Bay, was presented alongside it. The production aimed for a low carbon footprint: built largely from materials recycled from past exhibitions, and designed to be disassembled and reassembled for shows already planned for the following two years.
Coastal Imaginaries argued that centuries of technological confidence had displaced an older, landscape-literate way of building, and proposed a return to it — reading water, soil, and terrain as guides for how coastal cities should be allowed to change, rather than obstacles to be engineered around. The argument was structured as a collective and collaborative effort — artists, craftspeople, practitioners, and researchers working across professional, geographical, and institutional boundaries — because architecture, on its own terms, cannot make the case for change it was arguing for.
Adapting the exhibition for Halmtorvet 27 meant working with only part of what had filled a pavilion in Venice, and building a Copenhagen-specific layer on top of it. CAF× selected which material from the original presentation to bring to Copenhagen, and added new panels reading Vesterbro's own flood risk and development pressure through the exhibition's nature-based framework, illustrated with archival images of the neighbourhood. In place of Friedländer's physical diorama, large-format translucent textile panels — printed with high-resolution images of the original Venice staging — formed the backdrop of the Halmtorvet windows. The Copenhagen adaptation's visual identity and material were produced in collaboration with Office Alexis Mark, who had designed the original identity for Venice; CAF× directed the adaptation and produced the local material built on top of it. The exhibition's flexible display panels were repurposed from the building's own suspended ceiling tiles, part of Pihlmann Architects and Archival Studies' 2021 transformation of Halmtorvet 27, reconfigured for this show's specific layout.
The exhibition opened with a three-part celebration: the show itself, the launch of Critical Coast, the accompanying publication edited by Jeppe Sengupta Carstensen and Anna Aslaug Lund, and the release of Mermaid Bay as a record. CAF× coordinated the event and the public programme that followed it for the length of the run. A talk addressed flooding and Vesterbro's own low-lying streets, and a debate on nature-based solutions took Køge Bay's Beach Park as its case study. Blue Horizons, a film programme developed with Art Hub Copenhagen and curated by Jacob Lillemose, ran across six screenings at Cinemateket: two chapters of Life With Water exploring aqueous landscapes and wet infrastructure; Terrestrial Bias, Helena Wittmann's film on the sea's disruption of stable spatial orientation; Containerization of Space, Allan Sekula and Noël Burch's The Forgotten Space, introduced by cultural theorist Alexander Klose; The Aquatic Surreal, three of Jean Painlevé's silent films accompanied live by percussionist Felia Gram-Hanssen; and Blue Diversity, a screening of Moby Dick held jointly with the Mies van der Rohe Pavilion in Barcelona.
CAF× also handled the marketing and audience outreach for the exhibition and its full event series, alongside communications more broadly — press, newsletter, and social media — and the editorial curation of the CAF× Journal's Coastal Imaginaries collection, commissioning and coordinating the articles, interviews, and podcast content built around the show.
Coastal Imaginaries was supported by the Ministry of Culture Denmark, the Danish Arts Foundation's Committee for Architecture, and the philanthropic association Realdania. The Ministry of Culture owns the Danish Pavilion in Venice and appointed the Danish Architecture Center (DAC) as commissioner for Denmark's official contribution to the Biennale.
More images forthcoming.
Exhibition Design
Environmental Graphics
Brand & Identity Systems
Copywriting & Editing
PR & Communications
Marketing
Campaigns
Print & Digital Design
Project Management
Event Management & Coordination
Team:
Valeria Granillo, Josephine Michau, Søren Nørkjær Bang, Ida Willadsen Bang Kjeldsen, Alexandra Wedderkopp Emelianov, the team behind the Danish Pavilion during the 18th International Venice Architecture Biennale, DAC — Danish Architecture Center, Office Alexis Mark.