Hypercreatures – Future Mythologies

Exhibition from March 22 until October 5, 2025

Current global crises make the sensitive relationships between all lifeforms on our planet clear. Climate change, geopolitical conflicts and economic and social uncertainties show that the human being not only lives in networks, but also actively shapes and determines these. Human activity has far-reaching consequences for ecological and cultural systems on earth. The challenges of our time therefore call for a new consciousness for these connections and interdependencies in order to design sustainable global networks. They offer the chance to reconsider the position of the human being in these systems: not as a dominant species, but rather as part of a common network.

Hypercreatures – Future Mythologies deals with world views in which human and non-human lifeforms can coexist and live together cooperatively. The exhibition prompts us to question the separation between “nature” and “culture” as well as the power relations that characterise the relationship between humans and non-humans, with the aim of enabling fairer perspectives for the future.

Where human being, animal, plant and machine form a common organism, one-sided narratives are revealed, and new conceptions of lifeforms beyond dominant narratives become possible. These “Hypercreatures” are agents of a world in a state of transition. Their hybrid bodies tell of transcultural interrelations, tensions and healing attention between lifeforms.

26 artists and collectives from 16 countries populate the exhibition spaces with visions of composite creatures and transform the museum into a speculative biotope. In a dialogue with the works of Max Ernst, the artists occupy themselves with the mythologies of our capitalist era and new, shared narratives for a future that is more than human. The exhibition invites us to think about the role and significance of hybrid beings in our society and to discover the variety of stories they embody.

Marco Brambilla • Kévin Bray • Federico Cuatlacuatl • Disnovation.org • Nieves de la Fuente Gutiérrez • Libby Heaney • Anne Horel • Hyeseon Jeong und Seongmin Yuk • Suzanne Kite und Devin Ronneberg • Lu Yang • Bertrand Mandico • Linda Jasmin Mayer • Wangechi Mutu • Eva Papamargariti • Nina Paszkowski • Angelo Plessas • Mary-Audrey Ramirez • Anys Reimann • Naomi Rincón-Gallardo • Lex Rütten und Jana Kerima Stolzer • SOFF • Troika • Kira Xonorika

Opening

Friday, March 21, 2025 | 7 pm

Speakers will be:
Anne Henk-Hollstein | Chairwoman of the Rhineland Regional Assembly
Prof. Dr Jürgen Wilhelm | Chairman of the Board of the Max Ernst Foundation
Madeleine Frey | Director of the Max Ernst Museum Brühl of the LVR
Patrick Blümel | Curator of the exhibition

In the further evening programme
Live music performance | Faira (Experimental Folk Music)
Performance Dove fermarsi? | Linda Jasmin Mayer
DJ set | Alisa Berger

Free admission