Metaxy : Between Destruction and Reconstruction

Wars, armed conflicts, and ecological catastrophes are destroying cities and living environments across the globe. Reconstruction is an urgent task. Millions of people need shelter, space, and security. Yet reconstruction is all too often framed as a technical undertaking, a rapid return to order, a supposed ›year zero,‹ or an opportunity for investment and innovation. In the process, a crucial question risks being overlooked: who decides how rebuilding takes shape, and in whose interests.

›Metaxy : Between‹ begins precisely at this point. The exhibition as well as the accompanying events and education programme focus on the interval between destruction and reconstruction, the uncertain moment when it remains unresolved how societies confront loss, guilt, and memory. Before rebuilding begins, fundamental questions must be addressed: Who is allowed to return? Who owns the land? Which histories are told? When such questions are suppressed, violence does not end; it persists in other forms through exclusion, erasure, and new power relations.

For the Akademie der Künste, the exhibition is linked to a self-examination of its location in the Hansaviertel as a historic site of post-1945 reconstruction. At the same time, it opens up a global perspective featuring artists and spatial practitioners who develop their work from the liminal states caused by war, conflict and ecological disasters.

The three thematic areas that structure the exhibition—Houses, Floors, Times—are reflected in the discursive and performative program of events, which features symposia on these topics. To this end, a venue will be set up in the exhibition halls to host artist talks, film screenings, performances, and staged readings. Part of the curatorial dramaturgy consists of performative-musical miniatures conceived as ›interludes,‹ which take place both at the event venue and throughout the exhibition halls. They intervene in ongoing situations, interrupt them, shift perspectives, and connect different levels of the exhibition with one another. An extensive educational program accompanies the project.