TERRA DIASPORA – Actives Terrain N°2
“Collapse is not a destination, it is a process”

Julius von Bismarck, Julian Charrière, Marjolijn Dijkman, Raphaël Fischer-Dieskau,
Andreas Greiner, Robert Gschwantner, Spiros Hadjidjanos, Kapwani Kiwanga,
Almut Linde, Ulrike Mohr, Mazenett Quiroga, Marike Schuurman, Raul Walch

curated by Dr. Almut Hüfler and Stephan Klee

 

PROGRAMME

Fri 13 Jun 5 – 8 pm
Vernissage – Opening Reception with
– 5 pm: Welcome speeches
– 5 pm: Release of the new Edition by Spiros Hadjidjanos

Sat 14 Jun 3 – 10 pm
Pro City Nacht der Kultur
– 3 pm: Guided tour with the curators
– 5 pm: Talk with Dr. Almut Hüfler,
Prof. Dr. Almut Linde and Dr. Didem Aydurmus

Sun 22 Jun / Sun 06 Jul /
Sun 20 Jul / Sun 03 Aug
each at 3 pm
Sunday tour with Joos Ziegler

Sun 21 Sep 3 – 5 pm
Finissage – Closure
– 3 pm Panel Talk

 

Sun 21 September, 11 am – 5 pm
The Grand Finissage
11 am
Guided tour of the exhibition with curator Stephan Klee
2 – 5 pm
A three-part panel discussion on the theme of the exhibition
2 pm
Dr. Almut Hülfler (co-curator) in dialogue with the author Sven Hartberger
3 pm
Johana Meyer (Kunstverein Göttingen) presents active protagonists and developments in Göttingen
4 pm
Dr Almut Hüfler moderates the open closing discussion:
‘What can culture offer in times of ecological collapse?’
with Nils König (Kunst e.V. Göttingen) and Stephan Klee (artistic director, Kunstverein Göttingen)

Snacks and drinks will be provided during the breaks. Relevant books on the topic – including works by Sven Hartberger – will be available for purchase. The exhibition editions will be on display, and we look forward to seeing you there and hearing your contributions to the discussion.

To enable us to plan better, we would be delighted to receive your reservations for individual programme items at info@kunstvereingoettingen.de or klee@kunstvereingoettingen.de or by telephone on 0551-44899

Event image: Graphic by Stephan Klee, all rights reserved by the author and frontviews

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In the second year of TERRA DIASPORA, the central group exhibition Active Terrain N°2 brings together thirteen artistic positions in Göttingen’s Old Town Hall. The works on display, executed in various media such as sculpture, photography, drawing and video, all deal with the discrepancy between the ecological crisis of our planet and how people perceive it. In view of the magnitude and often great distance of human intervention and its consequences over a long period of time, this crisis can be recognised as an acute danger: This is because the complexity of these processes undermines the evolutionarily determined human response options to dangers, so that necessary countermeasures are repeatedly ‘postponed’ in the face of acute emergency situations such as wars, economic crises, etc. As a result, ecological collapse is already taking place without humanity being able to respond adequately. Or as Ugo Bardi, member of the Club of Rome, put it in 2022: ‘Collapse is not a destination, it is a process “*
The exhibition picks up on this phenomenon with a walk-in field of exhibition installations and makes these developments directly tangible – using the example of the two thematic areas ‘Processes in the forest’ and ‘Processes in the soil’. This is essentially made possible by the close connection of the works to real transformation processes from many globally distributed terrains: not only are the relevant places and their changes shown visually and acoustically, but often the affected, original material itself is also used artistically in real in the gallery space, so that the works shown can offer a material translation of external geological-industrial processes.
Like the mineral trickling of an hourglass, the artistic settings make a dilemma of the capitalist growth paradigm and the implications of our lifestyle directly and sensually comprehensible: That the long-term effects of short-term profitable productions are already going on tirelessly underground, but are not adequately incorporated into the planning and actions of the economy. The collected works as a whole become a polyphonic canon of consumption with a real core and the exhibition unfolds as an activated cabinet of curiosities of the urgent ecological upheavals of modern times in a fortified merchant guild house from the High Middle Ages.

*Quote: Ugo Bardi in ‘Limits and Beyond: 50 years on from The Limits to Growth, what did we learn and what’s next?’, 2022

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THE EDITION OF THE EXHIBITION

 

Spiros Hadjidjanos

Chemicals are Internal to Us, 2022–2025

Edition of 12 + 5 AP
,
29.7 cm x W 42 cm,
Archival inkjet pigment print (Fine Art Long Duration Inkjet Print) on HAHNEMÜHLE PHOTO RAG,
velvety – matte, natural white, acid-free, 100% cellulose, 308 g/sqm

Courtesy of the artist
Price: €320 / €240 for members of KV Göttingen

Here, the artist presents a brilliantly surrealistic homage to the elemental semiconductor silicon, which
is not only indispensable in many areas of the electronics industry, but also plays a key role as a natural substance in organic bodies, among other things, in holding tissue together. The motif thus humorously embodies our deep, material exchange with the terrestrial environment. By purchasing this edition, you are supporting the work of our association in a particularly sustainable and meaningful way.

 

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The annual programme 2025
TERRA DIASPORA – ACTIVE TERRAINS

TERRA DIASPORA is the leitmotif of the Kunstverein Göttingen 2024–2025. In view of fundamental upheavals in the coexistence of nature and mankind, TERRA DIASPORA stands for a world on the move; for a terrain that is becoming increasingly alien to its inhabitants and for an earth on which people are becoming foreign bodies. It is an earth in a foreign land, a terra diaspora.
After the first part of the TERRA DIASPORA – WELTEN WANDELN programme series in 2024 explored contemporary forms of fantastic, figurative art, TERRA DIASPORA – ACTIVE TERRAINS is the Kunstverein’s current motto for 2025. As the second part of the comprehensive TERRA DIASPORA exhibition series, the fundamental distortions in the relationship between nature and man in our present day are shown and discussed here using real geographical case studies and the creative reaction of artists to precisely these conditions in Göttingen. This annual programme is also developed and supervised by curator Stephan Klee together with the participating artists and related curators.

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We would like to thank our sponsors: Niedersächsische Sparkassen Stiftung, Sparkasse Göttingen, Niedersächsisches Ministerium für Wissenschaft und Kultur, Stadt Göttingen,  and Landschaftsverband Südniedersachsen e.V.