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From Without and From Within [The Auroville Project] (with Christoph Draeger)
installation with videos, photographs, sculptures, a geodesic dome, plants, archive materials, 2017

“At last a place where one will be able to think of the future only.” (The Mother)

[The Auroville Project] examines the alternative community Auroville, founded 1968 in Southeast India by French philosopher Mira Alfassa (aka ‘the Mother’). The project looks at how the utopian ideals of the community – no private property, no money, no rules, no religion – in short: divine anarchy, are lived today, almost 50 years later. It investigates, how relationships between humans and nature, an ecological and sustainable lifestyle, spirituality and political ideals of self-development and collectivism can be re-imagined today.

Auroville is a social experiment dedicated to continuous education and research on human nature (the search of the inner being) that thrives for human unity through a state of higher consciousness. But can Auroville really still be a model for communal living and a better world today, as the Mother demanded from the beginning? As one of the few alternative communes born in the 1960ies it does not only still exist, but is actually growing and thriving. Nevertheless the goal of building a city of 50,000 inhabitants in the form of a galactic spiral is far from being achieved after 50 years.

The exhibition aims to create an immersive installation comprised of videos, photos, sculptures, archive materials and artifacts, living plants (grown from seeds collected in Auroville), and a group exhibition within the exhibition titled “Re-imagining Utopia”, that investigates the potential of utopian ideas in the near future.

video works: What is Auroville? 60 min, Auroville Archives 13:30 min, Nine Palms (23:30 min)

RE-IMAGINING UTOPIA [THE AUROVILLE PROJECT] group exhibition
with works by Carolina Andreasson, Jessika Björhn, Andrew Burton, August Bällgren, Christoph Draeger, Martin Ebner and Ariane Müller, Charlotte Hedberg, Swetlana Heger, Heidrun Holzfeind, Nadira Husain, Elka Krajewska and Gregor Neuerer, Tryggve Lundberg, Gazi Mrah, Klaus Weber and Olav Westphalen

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