We must reopen our eyes and «unblind» ourselves again from the dominance of social media, influencers and other voices from «outside» and start dreaming again. To stop dreaming is to stop living.

Dreams need no statics, no laws, no borders. In our very pragmatic, realist, regulated lifes, free of jokes and visions, dreams seem to have got lost. It’s more the nightmares and a «zero future atmosphere», making us hurtling «eyes wide shut/open» towards a non-predictable future. Did the British surrealist painter Conroy Maddox (1912-2005) have such visions when he painted his installation of St Lucy, patron of the blind, in 1950?  

 Bringing back dreams into our thinking and behavior could add the missing colors in our nowadays dichotomic black-and-white-thinking. Not being able to live and endure ambivalence, but instead taking refuge in the simple answers, is the result of an increasing laziness of thought and lack of imagination. As Carolin Emcke (author and publisher) says, «Silence gives way to injustice». And when even the artists who normally hold up a mirror to society stop dreaming, the art market emerges. That is the path we are currently on.

In recent decades, the Global North has tried to spread its dreams across the entire planet – be it our democratic thinking, the self-realization of individuals or areas of life such as agriculture and food supply, medicine or health. After all, these countries should at least meet our «holiday requirements» with infrastructures that guarantee safe, appropriate holidays without having to have too much insight into the real lives and poverty of the local population.

Let me quote our agricultural system, where we succeeded with an almost industrial production of grains, cattle or dairy industry in feeding our growing populations. We managed to impose this production on African countries as well. But there quicker than here and due to a more fragile ecological equilibrium, the ways of our «hard-core and fossil-fuel-based agriculture» don’t work anymore. Our production methods have proven to be environmentally unsustainable and even affect the climate in the long-term. They damage human health with products that don’t meet the cultural lifestyle. Or even worse, which are unhealthy, junk- and fast-food. Now, slowly these countries restart «dreaming back» of their original ways of treating earth and growing plants, that suit their climate zones and way of life.

In many areas, our dreams for other worlds have failed miserably, or have only contributed to enriching ourselves even more. And we are left with an even bigger shamble than before. But our dreams have nevertheless borne fruit – in India and China, dozens of new airports are currently being built for all those people who would like to experience the western dream of travelling. And who want to come to us, living the dreams that didn’t work for them: our economic and social welfare system, where everything is thought of – in case of illness, poverty, age. No more worries – an all-round guaranty. Halleluja!

With the selected artists, we want to counteract the nightmares, the silence and the helplessness and become a dream space for a few months.