Exhibition

Rapeseed for energy production or wheat? Potatoes or photovoltaics? Given today’s plethora of threatening situations, from climate crisis to disrupted supply chains, some argue that it is not right to use agricultural land to produce energy instead of food. You, visitors to this exhibition, are invited to embark on a journey of views and feelings about these land use conflicts. You won't find any definite answers, but you will find historical and contemporary, speculative and playful, scientific and artistic perspectives that may generate new thoughts and opinions. The trail extends over two floors, and is conceptually complemented and spatially structured by a film program that is shown in five video boxes.
It all begins with activities in and around the soil, and with the direct and indirect inflow of energy from the sun. Today is by no means the first time that areal limits to insolation have been perceived as a crisis. The fact that agriculture, culture, and society are closely linked is shown by several millennia of images of agriculture collected on a "crazy wall". Nothing in this long history has had as far-reaching consequences as industrialization. How much fossil energy is contained in today's agricultural products? On a "detective wall" about the nitrogen conspiracy, you can find out about some of the key connections between these transformations. Finally, on a large "plant table" on the second floor, the tractor’s trail leads to fields and battleground, and meets with a quartet of cultivated plants, the "glocal" history of sugar and the historical dynamics of collectivization and capitalization.