ROTTERDAM.- The Metro54 collective presents BLUEPRINT: Whose urban appropriation is this?, a multidisciplinary group exhibition and public programme, at TENT Rotterdam, focusing on the relationship between street culture and architecture. Metro54 invited architects, designers, rappers, producers, and artists to show new and existing work that explores and articulates the complex relationship between architecture and street culture.

Group exhibition
Rotterdam is known as the Dutch capital of hip-hop, where architecture, urban arts, and urban culture are deeply intertwined with the city’s DNA. Old neighbourhoods and new pompous architecture alternate with each other, functioning as a catalyst for contemporary art, performance, and music culture. This group exhibition and lively public programme taps into this condition by highlighting and questioning urban appropriation and notions of the city and its architecture. The themes of ‘architecture and identity’ and ‘urban appropriation of street culture’ in cities, such as London, Lisbon, Paris, and Rotterdam, receive particular attention. For example, artists Ilya Karilampi, Kareem Lotfy, and Marcel van den Berg use codes, such as ‘realness’, and the visual language of hip-hop to create work that resonates both with street culture and contemporary art.

Appropriating TENT
Architect Afaina de Jong and designer Innavisions, together with Metro54, appropriate the physical exhibition space by intervening in TENT’s architecture. The duo’s installations and geometric settings form a coded backdrop or stage for the work of artist VHILS, photographers Khalid Amakran and Charlie Koolhaas, and others. Taking distance from the cliché of the white cube, Metro54 transforms TENT into an experimental playground and meeting point, where installations, sound works, music videos, live performances, interviews, discussions, and takeovers interweave, thus extending the vitality of a culture in constant motion within the walls of the institute.

Public Programme
Parallel to the exhibition is an ongoing, multi-vocal public programme of gatherings, an audio tour through public space, a film screening, a symposium, and a pop-up video installation organised with HipHopHuis, BIRD, Studio Narrative, and AFARAI. Urban appropriation, socio-cultural issues, architecture, and ownership in the city are critically questioned, reinterpreted, and contextualised in dialogue with visitors, guest speakers, artists, musicians, dancers, and architects.

Metro54 x Cultural Appropriation
Metro54 is a platform for young artists, performers, and other creators who explore the boundaries of their (art) disciplines, paying specific attention to talents who take inspiration from the world’s metropolitan melting pots. Metro54 organise interactive programmes, exhibitions, and (pop-up) events for a predominantly young audience. As part of their two-year Cultural Appropriation programme, Metro54 examines appropriation in contemporary urban arts and culture. BLUEPRINT: Whose urban appropriation is this? is the first part of this programme and focuses on urban appropriation.