Kunst Kiosk #3 - Shifting Ecologies

Goethe-Institut Kolkata presents “Shifting Ecologies”, the third exhibition at Kunst Kiosk at the institute’s lobby. The exhibition will open at 7.00 pm on 31 October 2025.

“Shifting Ecologies” explores artistic responses to the ecological crisis and the age of the Anthropocene. The featured video works reflect on the fragile balance between humans, nature, and technology, offering insights into a “more-than-human world.”

The perception of nature and questions of ecology have long been subjects of artistic reflection. Themes of interconnectedness, care, and symbiosis—central to current artistic, ecological and theoretical discourse—run through the exhibition. The works invite us to rethink sustainable ways of coexisting and consider the role of art in addressing global environmental challenges.

Technology enables new forms of communication with the environment: sensors reveal animal behavior, AI generates virtual landscapes, and artistic strategies open spaces for empathy and responsibility toward other life forms. The exhibition highlights how art can foster ecological awareness.

Kunst Kiosk, a long-term project by the Goethe-Institut Kolkata, aims to give art lovers access to relevant approaches and trends in contemporary art from Germany and India in a site-specific artistic installation titled Grids Grounded: An Encounter of Circles, designed and installed by the renowned artist and art mediator Sanchayan Ghosh.

The exhibition will be showcased till 31 March 2026 from 11.00 am to 6.00 pm daily (except on Sundays and public holidays).

THE CURATOR: SABINE HIMMELSBACH 
 
Since 2012, Sabine Himmelsbach has been director of HEK (House of Electronic Arts) in Basel. After studying art history in Munich, she worked for galleries in Munich and Vienna from 1993–1996 and later became project manager for exhibitions and conferences for the Steirischer Herbst Festival in Graz, Austria. In 1999 she became exhibition director at the ZKM | Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe. From 2005–2011 she was the artistic director of the Edith-Russ-House for Media Art in Oldenburg, Germany. Her exhibitions at HEK in Basel include Ryoji Ikeda (2014), Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Preabsence (2016), Eco-Visionaries (2018), Entangled Realities. Living with Artificial Intelligence (2019), Making FASHION Sense, Real Feelings. Emotion and Technology (2020) and Libby Heany: Quantum Soup (2024). As a writer and lecturer, she is dedicated to topics related to media art and digital culture.