Ten ceramic objects have been placed in public spaces, inviting people to experience the urban environment in a new way. They add a dimension of change, imagination and vitality to the surroundings.

In mythology, Gaia is regarded as the embodiment of the Earth – the source of all life. Yala Juchmann and Kathrin Köster draw on this understanding of a process of constant becoming in their site-specific installation. They have created ceramic objects that are situated in public spaces at various locations throughout the city centre.

The works appear in niches, on façades and at crossings. They do not appear monumental, but rather as subtly placed interventions. Their organic, creature-like forms – somewhere between structure, being and tissue – add a layer of change, imagination and vitality to the built environment.

In doing so, they engage with the urban landscape not merely as a visible phenomenon, but as a historically, politically and socially negotiated space. These interventions shift perceptions and highlight that our coexistence is not a static but a malleable construct – and, above all, a shared living space.

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To mark the conclusion of Inceptive Spaces, the Upstream Algae collective is hosting a drinks reception. Algae-based drinks served with melting ice sculptures – inspired by studio floor plans and modular building blocks – highlight studios as fragile, ever-changing spaces of production.

In dialogue with the exhibition and the context of the Hobrechtstraße 31 studio building, the evening combines artistic processes with questions of collective coexistence, spatial threat and shared agency.

Upstream Algae is a participatory art project that invites people to encounter algae as living repositories of knowledge. At the intersection of art and science, the project explores algae not as a resource or a disruptive factor, but as co-actors and mentors – opening up spaces for sensory, symbolic and material encounters. Together with scientists and site-specific communities, Upstream Algae investigates how algae can shape new narratives of coexistence, adaptation and ecological intimacy. What can we learn from their biology, their resilience and their role in our shared planetary systems?

With the words “Lifelong, all you men are blind / Now, Faust, be so to the end!”, the personification of Care causes the protagonist to go blind at the end of Goethe's two-part tragedy. Up to this point, Faust – accompanied by Mephisto – had developed into an embodiment of modern capitalist man, who pursues his vision of the good life regardless of the consequences. In his constant “march forward,” he wants nothing to do with care. He cannot recognize his blindness as such and interprets the sound of his gravediggers as work on his large-scale construction project.

The scene can be seen as a parable about a phenomenon that had already been the subject of tragedies in ancient times as a motif of blindness. As a symbol of loss of reality and self-deception, blindness has apparently lost little of its relevance in the nearly two hundred years since “Faust.” Rather, in the film The Zone of Interest (2023), it takes on the form of an emotional blindness in the shape of a privacy wall surrounding the idyllic garden of concentration camp guard Rudolf Höß and his family. According to director Jonathan Glazer, this scene may rightfully be understood as a metaphor for current events.

For the group exhibition “Die Menschen sind im ganzen Leben blind / Lifelong, all you men are blind”, the curatorial team (Almut Hüfler, Katja Pudor, and Andreas Schmid) invited fourteen international artists to explore the questions raised by these forms of blindness in our present day and their possible counterstrategies: Where and under what conditions do fragmentation of reality and loss of reality manifest themselves, and how can access to reality be restored, how can care and concern be allowed again?

Using a variety of different media (painting, drawing, sculpture, video, site-specific installation, performance), a walk-in discourse emerges in which, against the backdrop of a psychological phenomenon, fundamental questions are asked about our relationship to nature, our perception of time, our relationship to history and to our fellow human beings.

mit: Gökçen Dilek Acay, Amer Al Akel, Anna Bittersohl, Madeleine Dietz, Martin Albrecht Fulton, Maria Kassab, Kathrin Köster, Claudia Mann, Warren Neidich, Viktor Petrov, Katja Pudor, Andreas Schmid, Sten Saarits, Nicole Wendel

‍curated by Dr. Almut Hüfler, Katja Pudor, Andreas Schmid

As a German/Danish artist collective Upstream Algue Spopping Spree from Berlin we set up a workshop in which we will be exploring the possibilities of algae in terms of its materiality and metaphors: During our residency at Havmøllen, we will be setting up an “Algae Lab” on site. As part of this, we are inviting participants to a workshop on Wednesday April 2nd. We would like to create objects together with the algae- related to our consumption culture, as well as to our connection with the sea: weaving with algae, making bioplastics, painting with algae pigments: desirable, ready-to-wear accessories and practical objects will be created. Additionally, together we will make a large cyanotype print on fabric right by the sea: a visual feast of algae, people, hair, plastic, sand, wind, jellyfish - blurring the boundaries between the human and non-human world. It will be exposed to the sun, and later for attending visitors for a welcoming installation on Friday evening April 4th. The menu will include an Algae-infused Entree and further Algae Lab prototypes, as part of the Spring Festival of Havmøllen.