The main exhibition, The Missing Link, addresses the theme in five steps, and in as many rooms. Central questions are: How can designers respond effectively to human-made climate change? What is keeping us from taking action, what is the missing link? How to connect the plan to the project, and the project to the plan?

Points of View
In Room 1, introducing their points of view, the three curators have the floor. In addition to the Missing Link theme they developed together with the IABR, they each have their individual points of view, which they explain in a film installation directed by Marieke van der Lippe.

Play

VIDEO: THE MISSING LINK: INTRODUCTION BY THE CURATORS

^{online version of video installation by Marieke van der Lippe}

^{© IABR, 2018}

The Wunderkammer
In Room 2, the Wunderkammer, a scenography designed by Wouter Klein Velderman and Caroline Ruijgrok explains that if the rapidly-growing world population wants to take a new, truly sustainable course – since it is unable to go back in time – it must use all modern means available. Showing the visual language of the sustainability transition, this room accommodates a kaleidoscopic overview of the action already taken in countless areas and by a large number of highly motivated professionals.

The Wunderkammer

^{picture: Aad Hoogendoorn}

The Turn
Room 3 presents a vision of the turn the curators are aiming for. The issue of climate change due to human behavior and humans’ excessive spatial claims touches upon the destiny of humans: they present what the Germans so beautifully call a Schicksalsfrage. The only entities that can intervene in this are of course humans themselves. But intervention calls for a fundamentally changed attitude, for humans to accept their fate, take their responsibility, and turn the page.

The Turn

^{picture: Aad Hoogendoorn}

Our Future in the Delta, the Delta of the Future
To meaningfully study the large, comprehensive questions within its framework the IABR and its curators decided to limit the work area for the 2018 edition to the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt Delta, the Delta of the Low Lands. This is an area of cultural landscapes that has born deep traces of intensive interaction between man and nature for centuries. Here, we can continue to work in a tradition that has always put a premium on change and design.

New Building Typologies for the Energy Transition

^{design: Civic -- picture: Aad Hoogendoorn}

Rooms 4 and 5 of the exhibition host the Ateliers in which, and the practices with which we will be working in the coming years: the two IABR–Ateliers, East Flemish Core Region and Rotterdam, and the Delta–Atelier. The latter is a collective of more than 40 coalitions from Belgium and the Netherlands that will together focus on The Missing Link in the coming three years to develop new practices along the research lines advanced by the IABR and the curators: Renewable Energy Landscape, (Re)productive City, Caring Living Environments, Healthy Agriculture, A New Mobility System, and Space for Biodiversity and Water.

Looking for the Missing Link
The Missing Link is an exhibition looking for the essential connections that will allow us to design the necessary transformation irresistibly and convincingly and to present prospects of changes that can actually and promptly be realized.
‘Work in progress,’ therefore: demonstrating what we do today and will be doing in the coming years, showing the starting points and research questions of our quest for ways to address the missing link. The results will be on show during the next edition, in 2020.

Credits

curators
Floris Alkemade
Leo Van Broeck
Joachim Declerck

assistants to the curators
Simone Huijbregts, Julie Mabilde, Hanne Mangelschots, Gijs Frieling, Tania Hertveld, Cateau Robberechts, Bas Vereecken

project manager
Lisette Schmetz

production and planning
Lisanne Bervoets, Jolanda van Dinteren
Cato Joris, Myrte Langevoord, David Snels, Dagmar Veenstra, Sanne de Vos

marketing and communication
Bonnie Kirkels, Nadine Hofman

exhibition design
B-ILD

graphic design
Studio De Ronners

film director
Marieke van der Lippe

scenography Wunderkammer
Wouter Klein Velderman
Caroline Ruijgrok

film animation
Architecture Workroom Brussels
Het Peloton

HAKA: past, present, future
Dudok Vastgoed

models
Made by Mistake
Studio018
Studio Woudstra and Adam Scales

construction and lighting
Bart Cuppens Tentoonstellingsbouw
Quintusbelichting
WG Theatertechniek
VHS Mixed Media Solutions

texts
Marieke Berkers
Suzanne Fischer

copy editing and translations
InOtherWords translation & editing
D’Laine Camp, Gerda ten Cate, Maria van Tol