How can we confront the many crises of our times as a society? And what active role can art play in this? How must we change our society on a systemic level so that the Earth remains habitable in the long term? How can we break with traditional notions of art in order to strengthen its social impact and forge new alliances between art, science, and society?
The exhibition Fellow Travellers: Art as a Tool to Change the World acts as a catalyst for these questions: As a place for possibilities, it offers a platform for artistic projects that demonstrate the benefits of art for society in an exemplary way. Divided into various chapters, Fellow Travellers unites projects of this kind in order to bring them into a dialog and facilitate exchanges.
In July 2025, Fellow Travellers will open the new exhibition chapter Assembling Grounds. Practices of Coexistence. The chapter was developed in India and Sri Lanka on the basis of the ZKM travelling exhibition initiated by Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel, Critical Zones. In Search of a Common Ground (2022-24). The travelling exhibition was prepared and realised by the ZKM together with the Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Mumbai and with the support of the network of Goethe-Instituts South Asia – an inspiring collaboration that is now continued for Assembling Grounds. On its journey, the exhibition brought together diverse locations, local communities, and ideas from different contexts.
The works that resulted, including numerous new productions, interrogate modern paradigms of knowledge production and linear technological progress. They confront them with micro-histories of cultural resistance, drawing on traditional cultural techniques from various places on the Indian subcontinent. Art practice thus becomes a medium for the restoration and preservation of knowledge that is lost or threatened with oblivion due to ecological, urban, and political or economic developments.
The opening will be accompanied by events and activations: On Friday, July 25, there will be lectures and discussions from 4 p.m. with a.o. Jahnavi Phalkey, Ravi Agarwal, Bettina Korintenberg, Amruta Nemivant and Mira Hirtz. This will be followed by the exhibition opening at 7:30 p.m. On Saturday, July 26, from 11 a.m., we invite you to artists talks and performances on the ZKM orchard. More details about the program will follow shortly here.
More information here.
