For the fourth time in a row, the Bruges Triennial is using art and architecture as a lever to reflect on public space and send a message to the world for the future for almost five months. The Bruges Triennial raises the question of how a UNESCO city, where preservation is central, can deal with concepts such as change and sustainability, and how contemporary art and architecture can create a new framework for this.

After a period of unbridled opportunism in the construction sector, a new era has dawned: alarm bells such as the concrete ban, climate change, affordable housing and the need for open space are calling for awareness, for a shared desire for change. We need to do things differently to guarantee a future for this world. In Bruges too. Space is particularly scarce in Bruges. The curatorial team draws on the book Zwerfruimte/Wanderspace by RE-ST Architects, in which the question ‘Why do we build more than we need?’ calls for the detection of stray space as an opportunity to work with the possibilities of what has already been built. Wanderspace is defined here as both the built and unbuilt space that we have produced together but underutilise on a daily basis.