The advisory board members translated the discussions surrounding the meaning and form of the documenta 12 leitmotifs in Kassel into their own contexts. This made it possible to mesh local themes and issues with the translocal horizons of the international art exhibition, and to render them more accessible to the local and broader public.

documenta here with us!

In 2002, a children’s and youth network was established in Kassel on the occasion of documenta 11 with the aim of representing and supporting educational work with children and youth in the city on a broader basis.
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The leitmotif of modernity poses the question of a possible shared horizon for humanity – and this is tied to the question of the management of finite resources on a global level. The activity Making the Invisible Town Visible takes up this question, proceeding from the subterranean supply system for electricity, water and gas in Kassel. ... more

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Proactive Dreams

Western modernity has been shaped by industrialisation and the development of mass production. This history is an ambivalent one, associated with prosperity and social improvements as well as war and destruction.
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Salon des Refusés

As is evident not only from the continuing and increasingly tense discussions of job cuts, executive salaries and the reforms to the social security system known as Hartz IV, our society’s self-definition around paid employment is in deep crisis.  ...more

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A command of the German language is becoming an increasingly important key to participation in society. This is accompanied by calls for monolingualism, which go hand-in-hand with substantial pressures for social conformity.  ...more

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For the past two years, students of geography from the social science faculty of the University of Kassel have been busy developing new excursion formats. From the perspective of human geography, they view space not just as a phenomenological or purely formal problem, but also as a product of societal power relations. ...more

Chalk drawing: Jürgen Stollhans
Foto: Robert Collette
Copyright: documenta GmbH