Birth and death are moments we all share. We come into the world in a difficult, bloody, yet joyful way, entering a world that existed long before we arrived. From the moment we are born, we are given a name and registered. Our first moment in this world is immediately documented as something unique and traceable. Yet not every life is welcomed in the same way by the world into which it is born. Some births are celebrated and recorded; others are met with suspicion, dispossession, or silence. The same systems determine whose lives are protected and whose are considered replaceable, whose deaths are mourned and which pass unnoticed.
To be born is to enter an already inhabited world. Life unfolds alongside others, both human and non-human, within fundamental relationships of interdependence that remind us of our responsibility to one another. Although life often seems to pass quietly, in ordinary and unremarkable ways, certain moments, births, deaths, anniversaries, and jubilees, are marked by ceremonies, celebrations, customs, and rituals. On these occasions, caring for one another extends beyond mere survival. They remind us that celebration is a privilege not granted to everyone, and that celebration can also be a political act.
In a time of systemic violence against one another and against our planet, After Birth: Structures of Togetherness brings together a group of artists and architects not to celebrate the milestones of any one individual life, but life itself, the life we share.
Triënnale Brugge 2027 begins with a simple yet radical act: coming together, to grieve, heal, remember, and dream. The large-scale artworks and installations in public space explore the rituals, customs, and material structures, the “structures of togetherness”, through which we are all dependent on one another. They demonstrate how art and architecture can jointly create space for a life lived collectively.
Across the grounds of Bruges hospitals, maternity wards, and chapels, on industrial sites, and along the canals that run through the city, visitors are invited to imagine a dignified, joyful, and meaningful life that goes beyond mere survival.
During Triënnale Brugge 2027, the city becomes a place to gather, experience, and reflect on how we wish to live together. A place where that which fades continues to resonate, where mourning turns into celebration, and where we learn how to begin again.
Chapter I: The Arrival
Breaking waters
The Arrival begins where the waters break: at the beach. A place where some come to rest and others arrive after a crossing they did not choose for themselves.
We are all born into a world that existed before our arrival: first into another person's body, then into an endless sequence of enclosures and spaces, buildings, cities, vessels, and oceans.
The five works in this chapter draw on embodied experiences of immersion, through looking to the sky, bathing, and sweating, and engage artistically with the breaking of waters. They tell their own stories of arrival, boundaries, interiority, and new beginnings.
By Mahmoud Khaled, PAN-PROJECTS, Kulttuurisauna, Marie-Louise Richards and Leopold Banchini
Chapter II: The Registration
Named and classified
The moment we are born, we are categorized. “It’s a girl!” the doctor announces about the newborn, who is immediately placed within a system that will follow her throughout her life. From carefully documented achievements at school to carefully counted yet unequally compensated hours at work; from assigned citizenship to citizenship that is acquired or denied.
All this information is stored in archives. These archives ensure that certain forms of knowledge endure, while others slowly disappear. Some traces vanish entirely. In a system that extracts value from bodies and then moves on, the lives and skills that sustained an industry can be left behind without any record remaining.
The three works in The Registration examine how life is administered. They focus on industrial archives containing countless hours of lived labour, on questions of citizenship in modern Belgium, still shaped by its colonial past, and on artists collaborating across borders to make new forms of connectedness visible.
By Theaster Gates, Sammy Baloji and Sandi Hilal
Chapter III: The Herd
Never Alone
A life lived together is a life lived with others. We enter an already inhabited world and discover ourselves in relationships of mutual dependence with other beings, the land, and the systems that connect us.
We share this world with companion animals and prey animals, and we build it alongside them. We domesticate other species, yet are also shaped and domesticated by them.
We cultivate and inhabit land, rocky subsoil, and fertile ground, where sunlight, water, and plant life work alongside human hands.
The Herd brings together three artistic investigations into interspecies relationships and biochemical dependencies.
By Kapwani Kiwanga, Animali Domestici and Brrum
Chapter IV: The Feast
A life beyond mere survival
Food and care are prerequisites for life. In moments of celebration, they become events in themselves: sources of joy and reasons to come together.
From intimate dinners among friends to spaces of dancing and exuberant celebration, when we feast, we embrace a life that extends beyond mere survival.
The Feast acknowledges that not all lives are celebrated equally, and that some lives are not celebrated at all. Through infrastructures for listening, speaking, and eating, this chapter brings visitors together to celebrate life itself.
By Afaina de Jong, Laura Muyldermans and TAKK
Chapter V: The Ceremony
What remains, fades
Ceremonial places bring us together to grieve, celebrate, pause, and reflect in everyday life. Rituals interrupt the ordinary flow of time and create spaces in which we can pause, alone or together.
The present is marked by forms of grief for which we do not always find an outlet: genocide, mass violence, and the extinction of entire species are ever-present realities. We continue to mourn those we know by name. Losses without names disappear more quickly from view. At the same time, we search for meaning and for ways to live together.
In Bruges, where the sacred and the everyday, the intimate and the public have shared the same streets for centuries, this chapter explores how we can create time and space to pause and reflect, to grieve together, and in doing so resist the disappearance of what is in danger of fading away.
By New South, Luana Vitra, Joris Van de Moortel, PLAN COMÚN and Tarik Kiswanson