Danube Collection ~ Lazy and Dry Swimming Sessions

Since 2010, the City and River Association (Valyo) team has been working to bring Budapest's citizens closer to the Danube and the Danube closer to its citizens. Initially an informal group that organised small-scale art installations and actions on the Danube embankment, the association was registered in 2014: after 2015 it changed scale, developing a vision for the use of the embankment in Pest in the framework of a Budapest tender, which became a precursor for further developments. Between 2015 and 2019, their projects demonstrated of temporary public space use, such as the social programming of the Liberty Bridge or the use of the riverside areas in the Rust Belt, like the Valyo Harbor. Valyo conducted important community work for six years on the Roman bank, one of the last natural banks in Budapest, and saved 1,000 floodplain trees from being cut down through demonstrations. After 2019, due to Covid and municipalities opening up to NGOs, they were able to create temporary waterfront spaces on a larger scale: the Pest and Buda quays in the city centre and an embankment in the Rust Belt, making them one of the pioneers of the local tactical urbanism movement. Utilisation of the Danube's water surface has long been on the agenda, but in recent years there was a focus on the Danube as a touchable and swimmable area. Since 1973, bathing in the city had been banned, Valyo opened the first Danube beach and is now working on the realisation of a downtown Danube bathing area.

On the last day of September 2023, the Valyo (City and River Association) team met at the tip of an island in Budapest in 31 degree heat. The Hungarian capital is also on the course of the Danube, a 2,850 km river that links European countries from Germany to Romania: in Budapest, as well as being an international shipping route, the association's work is helping more and more people to see the vast expanse of water as a liquid public space. In a peaceful, performative demonstration, members of Valyo dressed up in the Vienna-based Hybrid Dessous' Danube Collection to take a dip and splash together. The Hybrid Dessous collection is the result of six months of collaborative research, which has unravelled the relationship and history of the built environment and recreational use of the river. In Budapest at the beginning of the 20th century, there were 9 river swimming pools and many other Danube baths. Since 1973, swimming on the Danube has been completely banned within the city limits, but Valyo changed this in 2019 when it opened an open beach in the northern part of the city on the Romani bank, announced as a demonstration. Since then, it has been taken over by the local municipality and is still the only free Danube beach within the city limits. Since then Valyo approached the city centre: the Danube Collection's hybrid clothes are excellent urban wear on land and water, helping to break down the mental barrier of city users who are reluctant to use this vast liquid public space in the heart of the city. After the splash down, they arrived in wet swimsuits for the opening of the 1st Public Arts Biennale, where they had a dry swimming performance to draw attention to that according to their accredited measurements carried out in compliance with European Bathing Directive, the Danube is of excellent water quality, yet the river pools in the inner city section, damaged in World War II, have not been restored by any city government since 1944. Hundreds joined the performance on the UNESCO World Heritage quay. Since then, the association has been working to make the Danube in Budapest swimmable with as little built environmental intervention as possible. This season, water quality is being monitored at 4 locations in Budapest throughout the season. This summer's heatwave and the heat island effect in European cities shows the importance of liquid public spaces: the Danube not only connects but can once again be an important site for urban everyday life.