Organised by the editors Regine Ehleiter (Freie Universität Berlin/EXC 2020), Research Area 4: "Literary Currencies" and Friederike Schäfer (Freie Universität Berlin/EXC 2020), Project Earth(ly) Matters. How Exhibition Spaces Capture Natural Environments, Research Area 2: "Travelling Matters".

How do exhibitions respond to the environmental crisis and how are they themselves shaped by the conditions in which they operate?

At the launch of Exhibition Ecologies: Entanglements of Art, Institutions, and Politics in the Environmental Crisis, editors Regine Ehleiter and Friederike Schäfer will introduce the volume before being joined by several contributing authors for an open discussion with the audience.

The book approaches exhibitions as ecological media whose forms and narratives are inseparable from institutional structures and relations of power. Conjoining art-historical essays with curatorial reflections, it considers how ecological concerns become entangled with colonial legacies and extractivist practices. Its case studies range from museum collection displays to contemporary biennials and ask what sustainability and institutional responsibility might mean in the context of the climate crisis. At the same time, they address the possibilities and limits of exhibitions as sites of transformation.

The open access publication grew out of the Working Group "Exhibition Ecologies" and brings exhibition studies into conversation with the environmental humanities. It builds on questions central to Schäfer's EXC 2020 project "Earth(ly) Matters. How Exhibition Spaces Capture Natural Environments" and resonates with Ehleiter's current research on how concepts of planetarity are taken up and negotiated in contemporary art and exhibition-making.

Regine Ehleiter and Friederike Schäfer, eds. Exhibition Ecologies: Entanglements of Art, Institutions, and Politics in the Environmental Crisis. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2026. (Open Access)