Newly published in Open Access: “Exhibition Ecologies” (De Gruyter, 2026)

The volume edited by Dr Regine Ehleiter, research fellow at the Chair of Digital Arts and Cultural Communication at UW/H, and Dr Friederike Schäfer, research fellow at the Archive of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, ‘Exhibition Ecologies. Entanglements of Art, Institutions, and Politics in the Environmental Crisis’ has been published by De Gruyter.

The volume explores how exhibitions respond to the challenges of the climate crisis and how ecological narratives intertwine with colonial continuities, extractivism, institutional interests and questions of legitimacy. Exhibitions are understood here as ‘ecological media’, which are themselves shaped by infrastructures, economies and power relations.

The contributions combine art-historical analyses with reflections drawn from curatorial practice. Drawing on case studies ranging from museum collection displays to contemporary biennials, the volume discusses sustainability, decolonial justice and institutional responsibility, as well as the risks of the co-optation of ecological concerns and the transformative potential of exhibition-making.

On 27 November 2026, from 7.30 pm, Regine Ehleiter and Friederike Schäfer will present the volume at Pro qm in Berlin, together with several of the authors.

Regine Ehleiter / Friederike Schäfer (eds.): Exhibition Ecologies. Entanglements of Art, Institutions, and Politics in the Environmental Crisis, Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter 2026.

• About the publication / Open-access e-book

With contributions by Hannah Beck-Mannagetta, Indira Béraud, Linn Burchert, Mateo Chacón Pino, Regine Ehleiter, Lena Fließbach, Stefanie Hessler, Elisabeth Heyne, Michael Klipphahn-Karge, Juliana Robles de la Pava, Anna Sophie Springer, Julia Tovote, Stéphane Verlet-Bottéro.

Funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) as part of the Federal and State Strategy for Excellence in the context of the Cluster of Excellence ‘Temporal Communities: Doing Literature in a Global Perspective’ – EXC 2020 – project number 390608380.

This publication was partly funded by the Open Access Publication Fund for Monographs and edited volumes at Freie Universität Berlin.