wanderlust

Grasping Hunger

The first thing I encountered entering into the “Hungry City” exhibition at Kunstraum Kreuzberg/Bethanien was Agnes Denes’s work “Wheatfield – A Confrontation,” a set of photographs showing the contrast and the strange relation between field landscapes and urbanscapes. I must say it affected me immediately and in that moment I knew the exhibition would have a lot to say. It started with a bang, a clear message: We have some serious problems, and we need to do something about it. But can political art really cause an impact on the world?

The huge exhibition space of 450 square meters is filled with photos, videos and installations about new agriculture projects all over the world – which may interest some, and others not. The work that impressed me the most, however, was called “Kultivator,” a collection of revolutionary tips such as “help a farmer,” “learn from old people” and “arrange a party to get to know your neighbors.” Simple things that can actually make a difference.

The Simple Life 


The installation “Fallen Fruit”  goes in a similar direction of advice-giving;  the guidelines are “take only what you need, say ‘hi’ to strangers, share your food, take a friend and go by foot.” Simple enough indeed. The artwork provided stimulus that made me question and think about agriculture, food or environmental problems – but the more and more I thought about the artwork, the more I realized it was mainly about people and how we can live better as a community, learning from eachother and respecting the nature that surrounds us.

In order to achieve the goal of making people think and change their lifestyles, there is also a list of activities happening during the two months of the exhibition, such as gardening and cooking together. Thus, by not only making people re-think the way they relate to others and to nature, but by also bringing people together, this exhibition may just be on the way to creating some sort of social change!

Article written by Nathalia Duarte

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