The 16th Triennial for Small Sculpture Fellbach surveys the potentiality of habitat as a space of survival with sculptures and installations by more than 50 contemporary artists. It is precisely in this that all the defining themes of our present age culminate – climate change, the interconnection of analogue and digital lifeworlds, pandemics, wars and migration.
The concept of habitat delineates, as a subcategory of a biotope, the living environment of humans, animals and plants. Habitat derives from the Latin verb habitare and means, ‘he/she/it inhabits’. It is most fundamentally about a surveyable and manageable unit that is shaped by all the creatures living in it. Habitat thus offers the starting point for the Triennial to discuss our relationship to and interaction with the earth as a whole, all the more urgent in an age plagued by planetary polycrisis.
The works at display recall important historical markers and show the devastation left behind by an economy geared to continuous growth and a society oriented on prosperity and how they have changed habitats permanently. But they also show resistance to these developments and strategies for the future that are developed under the premises of cohabitation and care.
The exhibition, in which cultivated, toxic, lost, hybrid, postcolonial and future habitats overlap, should be wandered through. Much like an (intellectual) hiking trail, it encourages visitors to understand habitats as sensitive spaces of action which are also – and always – inhabited by non-human creatures.
Above the visitors’ heads, 80 Venetian blinds with different inscriptions form a habitat of their own. They visualise the discursive context of the exhibition. Visitors are invited to expand the word cloud of future habitats: what’s missing, what should be added? How can we continue to develop and enhance the conceptual sphere of the Triennial? Get involved and make your own future scenarios and ideas visible!