The exhibition was co-curated by Birte Hinrichsen and Dr. Barbara Segelken. We interviewed them both about their project.

Barbara Segelken: Birte Hinrichsen and I co-curated the exhibition. It is obvious that we constantly communicate in everyday life by means of language, text and images. We use them to create meaning, make judgments, and try to convince people of what the supposedly right or wrong behaviors are. In doing so, we often lose sight of the extent to which we use language, text, and images to mark group affiliation and simultaneously exclude others or otherness – and that's where the exhibition begins, so to speak. 

Birte Hinrichsen: We were interested in how the three elements of language, text and image are used by the 13 artists, what meanings are generated and how they rebel against various social attributions. Because it is always important to remember that it is not just about what is said, but also who says what, who writes what, who shows what, in other words, the social background is also important.

Birte Hinrichsen: My personal conclusion after working on the exhibition and with the artistic positions is certainly that, firstly, it was a lot of fun to empathize with the artworks and the artists, to think through what might be said, what levels of meaning are inherent in the artworks. Above all, it was very instructive to realize that works of art don't always convey just one meaning, but allow for many different questions and don't always provide just one answer. The exhibition texts, on the walls next to the artworks, are also very important to us. They are written in everyday language and, I believe, also lower the inhibition threshold for engaging with art. It was important to us to provide impetus here...

Barbara Segelken: ... and another option, namely to enter into the exhibition theme via the audio guide, has also been very well received. So there is an idea or a consideration to expand this format of mediation further, perhaps to make it even more interactive. The fact that the exhibition has been very well received by the public is also shown by the request from KAI 10 (Arthena Foundation), an exhibition space in Düsseldorf, to take over this exhibition to Düsseldorf, which of course we are also very happy about.

The motto for the year, “Creating a Future Vision: how do we want to live? How are we currently living? How do we want to live in the future?”, reflects the theme of the exhibition very well: the artists we are showing in the exhibition incorporate various levels into their works, which enable or not only enable different sensations, moments of doubt, insecurity, and situations of misunderstanding, but rather give them space. 

The accompanying catalog addresses the exhibition theme by means of outstanding artistic positions of the 20th and 21st centuries. The works presented tell of mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion, of attributions and the narratives created for them. And they remind us that these phenomena are man-made and therefore changeable, they make us jointly responsible.