IABR–DOWN TO EARTH is a biennale in times of pandemic – an anti-biennale. Instead of compressing a multitude of activities – concentrating them in time and place, inviting as many people as possible, from far and wide, through the same door – we will unfold the program over time. A biennale true to form is simply not possible under the current atypical circumstances.

In the next ten months therefore, until the summer of 2021, the IABR will present a series of exhibitions and other activities. We will, of course, follow the guidelines of the RIVM, the Dutch health authority.
This also means that we will wait as long as possible to decide when and in what form the consecutive program components will be presented. Step by step, we will find the best and safest way to exhibit projects that respond to the key question of this ninth edition of the IABR: Where can we land?

DOWN TO EARTH takes place in the area that we designated as the IABR–Test Site M4H+ in 2018: the Merwe-Vierhavens District (where the IABR is now based) and several adjacent areas, particularly the Bospolder-Tussendijken neighborhood in which the IABR–Atelier Rotterdam has been active since 2017.

In the first half of next year we will present one or more exhibitions in our new ‘home’, the Keilezaal, and DOWN TO EARTH will also manifest elsewhere in Bospolder-Tussendijken and Merwe-Vierhavens, both indoors and outdoors.

This fall, we’ll begin with two smaller exhibitions in the Keilezaal. The first, DROUGHT IN THE DELTA, presents and builds on the outcomes of the IABR–Atelier Drought in the Delta; the second on the results of the IABR–Atelier Rotterdam: Energy Transition as Leverage.

We will also find safe ways to organise a limited number of events, such as work sessions and lectures.

You can make your reservation for the fist exhibition, DOWN TO EARTH: DROUGHT IN THE DELTA, open to the public from 19 September, by clicking here.

In the meantime, make sure to stay healthy and safe!