Founded in 1088, the Alma Mater Studiorum is the oldest University on the European continent. It dates back to 1088, and among its many distinguished alumni are Petrarch, Dante Alighieri and Copernicus, as well as Pier Paolo Pasolini and Umberto Eco. The exemplary role of the University of Bologna contributed to the founding of numerous other universities across Europe and to the spread of the modern university model. From early on, anatomical research in Bologna was closely linked with artistic representation. Support from the Catholic Church played a decisive role in this process, granting artists an official function in the depiction and imparting of anatomical knowledge.

The science of anatomy began in ancient Alexandria in the 3rd century BC with the first scientific dissections of the human body, although knowledge of the human body was for a long time acquired mainly through the dissection of animals. For centuries, from antiquity to the Renaissance, the view into the interior of the human body remained strictly regulated. Religious, moral and social prescriptions determined what was permitted, and anatomical dissections were often allowed only under exceptional circumstances. At universities such as Bologna, the teaching of the body was initially based on ancient writings, without verifying this knowledge on the human body itself.

In the Renaissance, these prohibitions began to loosen. Artists such as Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo sought to depict the human body with the greatest possible precision. Their work contributed to the Catholic Church’s recognition of the scientific value of anatomy. Anatomical studies were no longer regarded as a contradiction to faith, but as a complementary path towards understanding the human body as the pinnacle of God’s perfection.

As early as the late 16th century, the first anatomical theatre was established in Bologna. Here, dissections of corpses could be carried out before students and interested spectators. At the same time, the first collections of prepared body parts and organs were created, yet the use of real corpses was limited: they decayed quickly, were available only in small numbers and for hygienic reasons could not be employed indefinitely for teaching and research.

So to give students and researchers a precise view of the human body despite these limitations, art and science entered into close collaboration with a particularly pragmatic solution: wax. Malleable, durable and capable of being coloured with realistic tones, this material made it possible to create lasting and lifelike reproductions of the human body. No other medium appears so true to life. The wax figures from Bologna reveal muscles, organs and nerve pathways—a glimpse beneath the skin. They allowed students and researchers to study the body in detail without having to rely on fragile corpses.

The history of anatomical wax figures for didactic purposes began in Bologna. In 1742, Pope Benedict XIV, the ‘Enlightenment Pope’, supported the establishment of the Anatomical Cabinet in the Palazzo Poggi. There, the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture were brought together under one roof. Artists and scientists worked side by side to reproduce the human body in wax with lifelike accuracy. Commissioned by the Pope, the artist Ercole Lelli created the first life-sized wax figures, which revealed muscles, organs and the skeleton layer by layer. This marked the beginning of modern anatomical wax modelling in Bologna—a tradition that lasted for more than 150 years.

The first wax models were created for teaching and training purposes. Later, doctors also used them for research and for the diagnosis of pathological conditions. These works eventually gave rise to collections that systematically documented human anatomy.

Today, visitors to the University of Bologna can discover two important collections. Firstly, that of the Museum of Palazzo Poggi, which preserves the reconstructed collections and laboratories—such as the Anatomical Cabinet—of the former Istituto delle Scienze e delle Arti. And it illustrates how science, art and medical history converged here. Secondly, this collection is complemented by the “Luigi Cattaneo” Anatomical Wax Collection, which demonstrates both normal and pathological anatomy. Wax models, bones and dry specimens form an illustrative didactic ensemble, showing how the University of Bologna became a European centre of excellence in medical research between the 18th and 19th centuries.

Incertae sedis II (Turn Male to Mate), 2025
Resin, clear resin and iron
162 x 135 x 242 cm

Incertea sedis III (Female Adulthood), 2025
Resin, clear resin and iron
215 x 158 x 76 cm

Multivisceral abdominal resection with BiClamp®️ knife 220, 2025
Silicone
245 x 440 cm

Partial liver resection using BiClamp®️ knife 220, 2025
Silicone
410 x 225 cm

Heart Transplant Surgery: ‘No Room for Anything Less Than Perfection’, 2025
Silicone
205 x 377 cm

is like living in two different planets, 2025
Wax
180 x 230 cm

i have an empty sit next to me, 2025
Wax
170 x 180 cm

my heart is pounding the idea of u coming, 2025
Wax
155 x 185 cm

Produced by Frankfurter Kunstverein

Kindly supported by the Zabludowicz Collection

Courtesy Agnes Questionmark

Agnes Questionmark lives and works in Rome and New York. Her reflections revolve around the questions of how bodies are read when they differ from social norms, and what it means for the individual when their body becomes the object of medical interventions and of biopolitical or legal regulation. Agnes Questionmark points to the power of a purely medical gaze, which fixes subjects, assigns genders and pathologises difference. By appropriating and transforming clinical imagery, her art becomes an act of self-empowerment—beyond binary categories of male and female, healthy and ill, human and non-human, fragile and resilient.

Agnes Questionmark’s art takes shape in performances, sculptures, installations and video works, and the starting point of her practice is her own body. Early experiences led the artist to question social expectations and notions/judgements of body and identity. As a child she was under constant medical observation and pharmaceutical treatment. Her body, as Questionmark states, did not fit into any category or into a societal norm of what a body should be. It did not function as it was expected to. And so the artist, at first within a male-assigned identity, began to explore other forms and categories through which to think and represent her own body. The question of the labelling of health and pathology, between self-perception and external perception, became the vanishing point of her reflections and inquiry.

She asked what reality is, searching for concepts with which it might be represented and described. Theories on photography by Susan Sontag, Roland Barthes and Walter Benjamin provided an essential foundation. Over the years, the artist developed her alter ego. In her performance TRANSGENESIS, in which she embodied an oversized octopus for 8 hours a day over 23 days, she celebrated her own transformation and rebirth as Agnes Questionmark.

Octopuses are a guiding figure in Questionmark’s work. They stand for motherhood, as these intelligent sea creatures die in order to nourish their offspring with their own bodies. And they possess not just a single brain, but neural centres in each of their tentacles, enabling them to experience the world around them simultaneously.

For Questionmark, it is about transformation—about bodies that are not dualistic and socially constructed, but embody an in-between state, thereby empowered to assume a new identity and to transcend the old self. The question mark in her name symbolises this very conviction: that the self is not a fixed state, but a continuous flow of shifting perceptions, thoughts and emotions in dialogue with the world.

For the exhibition Anatomy of Fragility, the artist has created a large-scale installation: three life-sized sculptures and six wall objects. The starting material is imagery of open-heart, liver, and stomach surgery, with the surgeons’ hands reaching deep into the inner body. Questionmark distorts these images both digitally and manually, overlaying them with silicone or pouring wax across them like a thick skin. Pigments fuse with the material to form organic landscapes that evoke the appearance of sliced body tissue, and the tactile presence of silicone and wax recalls flesh and inner bodily spaces. In this way, visceral images emerge that grant an intimate view of the body’s vulnerability. In addition, the room is immersed in a soundscape: muffled heartbeats, the rush of blood, the sound of flowing and pumping, beating against the body’s surface from deep within.

At the centre of the space stand three life-sized sculptures: hybrid beings, somewhere between aliens, mythological water figures and fish. Their blue exterior appears cool, their surface wet, as if they had just emerged from the water or had only just been born. For Agnes Questionmark, water is the primal site of transformation, the place of becoming and passing away—the oceans as the origin of all life, or the amniotic fluid of the womb. Her sculptures and installations embody hybrid figures that resist clear categorisation, oscillating between human and animal. Or like a seahorse, this extraordinary delicate water creature where it is the males who carry their young. What is strange, what is other, what society often regards as monstrous, becomes in Questionmark’s work an image of openness and possibility.

The hybrid creatures of Agnes Questionmark cannot be assigned to any species or territory. Underwater or on land, organic or artificial, born or unborn, they embody states of in-betweenness. In this suspension, they point towards a posthuman idea of existence: a world in which bodies are no longer defined by hierarchy, identity or fixedness, but through entanglement, multiplicity and mutual dependency.

Questionmark’s experiences and sensibilities resonate with Donna Haraway’s philosophical notion of ‘tentacular thinking’, with Rosi Braidotti’s idea of the “nomadic subject” and with posthumanist thought. Posthumanism rejects a fixed concept of the human and broadens the focus beyond the human species, considering animals, technologies and the environment as significant agents that shape the world. At its core lies the question of relationships between humans and the many non-human beings, in ever-new constellations, free from hierarchy.

Questionmark makes use of the aesthetics of surgical interventions and biotechnological procedures. In her works the body is opened, made permeable and transformed. Yet while medicine and technology often serve, for the artist, as instruments of standardisation and control, she employs the very same aesthetic means to render these power structures visible. The gaze upon the body itself becomes a political act: who is permitted to shape it, who is being shaped?

For Questionmark, fragility and pain are the preconditions for transformation. Her hybrid beings unite pain with hope, monstrosity with care, disgust with beauty. She and her figures create images of a future in which humanity does not appear as a rigid norm, but as an open process—shaped by individual desires and longings. Agnes Questionmark invites us to rethink the body—as process, as possibility, as fragility that becomes strength.

Agnes Questionmark (*1995 Rome, IT) is an artist working across performance, sculpture, video and installation. Recent long-durational performances include CHM13hTERT (2023), presented in a public train station at SpazioSERRA, Milan (IT) and TRANSGENESIS (2021), presented by The Orange Garden and Harlesden High Street in London (UK). Her work has been shown at the 60th Venice Biennale (IT); Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva (CH); MAXXI Museum in Rome (IT); 14th Gwangju Biennale (KOR); Malta Biennale, Valletta (MLT); König Galerie in Berlin (DE); Fondazione Mario Merz in Turin (IT). Her first Italian solo show was presented at SPE – Spazio Performatico ed Espositivo Dello Scompiglio in Lucca (IT) 2025. Additionally, her writing has been published with NERO Magazine and presented at the ICA Foundation in Milan (IT). 2025 she participates in the 18th Quadriennale di Roma (IT).

Prof Dr Luciano Rezzolla, Institute for Theoretical Physics at Goethe University Frankfurt

Beauty and Complexity

Einstein’s Field Equations of General Relativity and Schwarzschild Solution of the Black Hole, 1915
ADM Equation by Arnowitt, Misner and Deser
CCZ4 Equation by Alic, Bona-Casas, Bona, Palenzuela, Rezzolla
Foil print on plexiglass, each 150 x 85 cm
Courtesy Prof Dr Luciano Rezzolla, Institute for Theoretical Physics, Goethe University Frankfurt

Often in modern physics a theory swings between the presence of beauty but the absence of complexity, and the absence of beauty but the presence of complexity. This happens every time the theory goes from being formulated in its idealised form – when the mathematical beauty prevails and the complexity is hidden – to being expressed under realistic conditions as those needed for actual calculations – when then the mathematical beauty fades away to be replaced by a less beautiful complexity.

The first line on the left panel reports the Einstein equations that fully describe the theory that revolutionised of our understanding of gravity. The second line shows instead the solution found by the Frankfurter Karl Schwarzschild and representing a black hole. In both cases, simple beauty hides the enormous complexity of Einstein’s theory or the challenges behind the concept of a black hole.

The middle panel reports the Einstein equations when written in a form that is commonly used to represent physical laws. In this case, the four-dimensional spacetime (that is, the combination of space and time) is split into a three-dimensional space and a one-dimensional time. A transition between beauty and complexity starts to emerge.

The right panel reports the same Einstein equations written on the left when expressed in the form that is needed to solve these equations with the help of supercomputers. Written in this way, Einstein equations can be used to calculate, for instance, what happens when two neutron stars collide and produce a black hole. In this case, complexity (that nevertheless has a beauty of its own…) replaces the compact beauty of the Einstein equations.

Seeing what cannot be seen

The Black Hole Sagittarius A*, 2022
Digital print on black Forex, 150 x 150 cm
© Event Horizon Telescope collaboration et al.
Courtesy Prof Dr Luciano Rezzolla, Institute for Theoretical Physics, Goethe University Frankfurt

In April 2017, scientists of the international collaboration “Event Horizon Telescope” (EHT) used eight high-frequency radio telescopes scattered around the globe to collect radio waves emitted from the very centre of our galaxy.

In April 2022, after three years of meticulous analysis of the data and on its theoretical modelling, the EHT presented to the world the image of Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, and that is presented here.

What is colloquially defined as a “photo” is in reality a map of the intensity of the radio emission averaged over time. What is peculiar about this image – that looks like a doughnut – is the approximately circular form of the bright part and the presence of a dark region of at the centre, a region that scientists call the “shadow” of the black hole.

The shadow, which is a precise prediction of Einstein’s theory of General Relativity, reveals the presence of an event horizon and hence of a black hole. Mathematically, a black hole is a solution in vacuum of the Einstein equations in vacuum, that is, in the absence of any form of matter or energy. Yet, the presence of the black hole is manifested via the spacetime curvature it produces and that changes the motion of objects near it.

Because the event horizon absorbs the light produced in its vicinity, the centre of the photo is darker as it “steals” light we would otherwise receive. At the same time, near the event horizon, where temperatures are high and the emission enhanced, light can still be emitted without being absorbed by the black hole. This is the light we effectively receive and is shown in the photo.

Touching what cannot be touched

Black Hole SgrA* as a tactile 3D model, 2024
⌀ 19,5 cm, height 6 cm
Produced for the exhibition The Presence of Absence with support from the European Research Council (ERC)
Courtesy Prof Dr Luciano Rezzolla, Institute for Theoretical Physics, Goethe University Frankfurt

The event horizon, that is, the outer surface of a black hole, cannot be seen because light cannot be emitted from this surface, where gravity is extreme.

Yet, the presence of a black hole can be deduced in terms of its “shadow”, that is, the dark depression at the centre of the large image on the wall produced by the International Collaboration “Event Horizon Telescope” (EHT). The dark region reflects the absence of light near the event horizon and has allowed us to “see” a black hole at the centre of the Galaxy (Sgr A*) as predicted by Einstein’s theory of General Relativity.

What if we cannot see? How can a black hole be “seen” by those of us whose eyes cannot receive light?

What is shown is a 3D rendering of the intensity of the radio emission from Sgr A* and you are welcome to explore it with your hands. In this way, you can imagine how a blind person can perceive it. The rendering also helps our minds imagine the very strong curvature of space and time that develops near a black hole and that is well reproduced by the steep walls of the print near the centre of the shadow.

Revealing the Presence

Glass hologram cube of photon trajectories curved by the gravitational pull of a black hole, 2024
15 x 15 x 15 cm, Glass
Produced for the exhibition The Presence of Absence at Frankfurter Kunstverein with support from the European Research Council (ERC)
Courtesy Prof Dr Luciano Rezzolla, Institute for Theoretical Physics, Goethe University Frankfurt

A black hole is a solution of the Einstein equations in the absence of matter, that is, in vacuum. Its outer edge is represented by the “event horizon”, a geometrical surface where gravity is so strong that nothing, not even light, can leave it. Hence, it is possible to enter the event horizon but not to leave it.

Because it cannot emit light, the event horizon of a black hole cannot be “seen”, at least in terms of light rays. However, the motion in its vicinity of light rays can reveal its presence.

The block shows the trajectories of light rays, or photons as physicists also call them, as they approach or leave a rotating black hole. The complex and sometimes bizarre trajectories they follow are the result of the strongly warped spacetime. The cube helps understand that the two-dimensional image of a black hole we measure with radio telescopes and the resulting photo is really the product of the three-dimensional motion of light rays coming from all directions and being deflected by the black hole.

These trajectories provide information not only on the presence of a black hole but also on its properties, that is, the mass and spin (how rapidly it rotates). Shown on one of the sides of the cube is an almost circular shape that scientists call the “shadow” of the black hole. Measuring the size and shape of the shadow helps them reveal the presence of a black hole and understand its properties.

Texts by Prof. Dr. Luciano Rezzolla

Marshmallow Laser Feast (MLF) are a collective of artists from London who work at the intersection of science, technology and art. With their installation Distortions in Spacetime, they take visitors on a journey into the darker corners of the universe and on a sensory encounter with the formation of a so-called stellar black hole. The immersive, audiovisual artwork creates images that translate astrophysical research and findings into a visual allegory.

Marshmallow Laser Feast are internationally recognised for their close collaboration with scientists, resulting in artworks that expand the perception of nature through immersive technologies. In 2021, they were invited by the Frankfurter Kunstverein to participate in the exhibition The Intelligence of Plants with their work Treehugger: Wawona.

Today, astrophysics have ever better ways of allowing our gaze to penetrate into the depths of the cosmos. However, the data and researchers’ mathematical calculations often remain inaccessible to laypeople. MLF use their art to attempt to translate the level of abstraction of mathematical theories into images for the general public. Distortions in Spacetime is dedicated to the formation of gravity, dying stars and black holes and relates these to our physical presence.

A stellar black hole is created when a huge mass of matter such as the core of a large dying star collapses. In the final moments of this collapse, matter is compressed to such an extent that its density goes to infinity. This extremely high density creates a point within the black hole at which the curvature of space-time is infinite and the laws of physics as we know them no longer apply: time stands still and gravity becomes so strong that not even light can escape its gravitational pull. The energy that forms this black hole unleashes a supernova explosion that fires the elements of life—carbon, oxygen, silicon, sulphur, calcium and iron—into space. Cosmic explosions give rise to the very elements from which new planets, our Earth, all living beings, plants, animals and ultimately us humans have emerged.

Visitors enter into a completely mirrored cube. A frenzy of images of flowing and swirling coloured atoms and sounds unfolds around them like in a cosmic opera. The installation’s technology captures people’s bodies in real time and models them into galactic explosions and compressions. The outlines of people’s bodies are imprinted on the particle clouds and cast the shadow of their presence into space.

What the animation Distortions in Spacetime can convey is a sense of wonder in the face of the bigger picture and the overarching structure of which we are a part. A sense of larger connections arises, as astronauts experience when they look at the Earth from space. They report a feeling of wholeness when they see the planet in all its beauty from afar, without political boundaries, and are captured by a deep understanding of the vulnerability of life on Earth.

Humans have always developed religious interpretations, myths and scientific theories to explain the origin of everything—including the universe itself before the Big Bang. The theoretical model of our time goes back to Einstein’s theory of relativity: in the beginning there was pure energy, there was no time, no space, everything was at the same time, at one point. Until the Big Bang created everything, the universe, the fundamental forces, the stars and ultimately the Earth and mankind. How can we understand this immensity? How can we comprehend what our sensory organs are not focussed on?

Our concept of reality depends on how our body is structured in order to perceive the world. Scientific research that explores the essence of nature reveals a wide range of realities that are often beyond our perception. Art does this too, but it brings it all back to us by enquiring into the meaning of knowledge and making it relatable in images.

The essence of what makes us human lies in the depths of space-time. The artists’ collective takes up the challenge of sensorially combining an examination of the nature of the universe with our own existence.

Marshmallow Laser Feast (MLF) is an artist collective based in London (UK) that creates immersive experiences by combining art, film, and Extended Reality, expanding human perception and exploring our connection to the natural world. MLF collaborates with interdisciplinary experts from art, programming, engineering, poetry, and chemistry to develop custom software and hardware systems. MLF has exhibited internationally at institutions such as the Barbican Centre, London (UK), ACMI, Melbourne (AU), Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media – YCAM (JP), Phi Centre, Montreal (CA), and the Istanbul Design Biennial (TR). The collective is known for award-winning works such as We Live in an Ocean of Air (2018) and In the Eyes of the Animal (2016), with the latter receiving the Wired Audi Innovation Award for Innovation in Experience Design. TreeHugger: Wawona was shown at the Frankfurter Kunstverein in 2021 and won the Tribeca Storyscapes Award for Innovation in Storytelling and the Best VR Film Prize at the VR Arles Festival (FR). MLF’s work has also been featured in leading publications such as The Guardian, New Scientist, Wired, The Times, and Creative Review.

Courtesy Lawrence Malstaf / Tallieu Art Office

Lawrence Malstaf is known for his interdisciplinary artworks, which move freely between visual art, installation, dance and theatre. His work deals with the human body and its possibilities of perception and explores physical and psychological boundaries. Breath is the starting point for the staging of Shrink 01995, which was originally created as a six-hour performative installation. Malstaf performed it himself. He later extended the work to include visitors, who were also able to experience this intense work.

Two large, transparent foils are stretched across a framed structure. The person presses their body into the space between them. Wrapped in this skin, he or she holds two tubes. One removes air, one supplies air. One creates a vacuum between the foils so that the body floats in a compressed state, while the other allows the body to breathe. For the duration of the performance, the person inside moves slowly and changes positions, and it is they themselves who regulate the air supply. There is no danger for the participants. However, they are faced with the challenge of having to overcome their own psychological expectation that the process might be difficult and dangerous. And they need to consciously change the way they control their own physicality. Breathing must find a new rhythm.

A breath is at the beginning and end of every life. We are constantly inhaling and exhaling into the world, that is the basic way of relating to it. The breath can stagnate or flow. The interplay between breathing and mental states is known in all ancient civilisations. Pranayama originated in India as a technique of breathing exercises for meditation and controlling thoughts.

The designed arrangement of the work shuts out sight and hearing and instead intensifies the perception of touch and pressure on the entire surface of the body. The senses are directed inwards, an increased concentration on the inside of the body sets in—the beating of the heart, the rushing of blood and the rhythm of breathing. A profound experience of space and physicality, isolation and limitation, as well as peace and protection opens up. The installation reflects the adaptability of the human mind and creates an intense reflection on the duality of fragility and resilience under extreme conditions.

Malstaf is looking for an experience that throws people back to the realm of the existential. He himself has lived for years in the seclusion of Norwegian nature. Silence, vastness and the forces of nature are fundamental experiences that he considers essential for a sense of the natural.

The participants in the experience assume new poses at regular intervals. In moments of immobility, they almost look like paintings or still lifes. Depending on how you look at them, the experience may appear terrifying or peaceful. The three-dimensional state of suspension can give rise to countless associations: from nature morte in the sense of bodies exhibited as goods or products, to the state before birth and weightlessness in the womb. Malstaf’s art is not intended to tell a story. He does not create pictorial metaphors. He creates spaces that make it possible to experience primal forces.

Over the summer, the Frankfurter Kunstverein launched an open call for people from very different areas and backgrounds to be part of Malstaf’s work. The artist prepared the participants for the experience in several sessions. They experience Shrink 01995 from a personal perspective, acting not only as observers of the artwork but also as co-creators, exploring the limits of their physical and sensory perception and bringing the artist’s work to life on an intense level.

Lawrence Malstaf (b. 1972, Bruges, BE) lives and works between Tromsø (NO) and Oudenaarde (BE). Malstaf’s art moves between visual art and theater. He is known for his sensory installations that explore space and orientation, engaging visitors as co-actors. Since graduating in industrial design from the Henry van de Velde Institute in Antwerp (BE) in 1995, he has worked both as an artist and as an innovative set designer in the international dance and theater scene. His performance Shrink alone has been shown over fifty times worldwide. Malstaf’s works have been exhibited in significant institutions such as the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Le Havre (FR), the IOMA Art Center, Beijing (CN), the CCBB – Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, São Paulo (BR), the Centre Pompidou, Paris (FR), the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg (DE), the Trondheim Kunstmuseum (NO), Bozar, Brussels (BE), FACT, Liverpool (UK), Eyebeam Art + Technology Center, New York (US), and Z33, Hasselt (BE), as well as at numerous festivals. He has received several international awards in the fields of art and new technologies, including the Golden Nica at Ars Electronica in Linz (AT) and the Excellence Prize at the Japan Media Arts Festival in Tokyo (JP).

The world we live in is the result of billions of years of natural development. The transformation of our planet, which accompanies this evolution, can provide insights yet to be discovered into the way Earth deals with change. Science and art offer very different approaches to exploring nature. However, both come together beautifully in this exhibition, which focuses on glimpses into the absent.

If we want to understand the functional relationships between the living world, the solid Earth and the climate system, or if we aim to reconstruct how our planet has changed over millions of years, scientists must gather information that indirectly provides insight into the past. For example, they use the chemical fingerprint left by a global event in geological formations to give shape to the past, the absent, and make it tangible. The study of our planet’s evolution, from the depths of time to the present, is carried out through precise, extensive and ideally innovative measurements of organisms and natural materials. These store information about a phenomenon, a development or a significant event in the living world that needs to be reconstructed. In order to delve deeply into the planet’s history, scientists must overcome incredibly long timescales. We bring the past into the present; we study the traces of a development. The present, therefore, opens up the possibility of gaining insights into processes and sequences that occurred long ago and would otherwise have remained forever hidden.

To discover the absent, it is necessary to look at a question from an unusual perspective. Innovation, creativity and the courage to take unfamiliar paths are the foundations for groundbreaking scientific discoveries. But they also offer an opportunity to provide solutions to the many challenges of a rapidly changing world—solutions built on authentic knowledge. Here, science becomes part of the democratic process, which it is our collective responsibility to protect. The question of what kind of world we want to live in in the future is a societal one, and science, if we choose to frame it this way, can describe the possibilities for shaping that future and the consequences of our actions. Making the absent visible from the present in order to develop options for the well-being of both humanity and nature—that is our opportunity.

We aim, through the collaboration between the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum Frankfurt and the Frankfurter Kunstverein, to reveal new perspectives and narratives concerning the relationship between humans and nature by combining science and art. Both partners bring their own unique expertise to this collaboration. How is the relationship between humans and nature changing against the backdrop of increasingly urgent global issues? What approaches will allow visitors to reflect on themselves without being overwhelmed by the scale and complexity of the question? For both institutions, this collaboration offers the opportunity to perceive nature and its development from different perspectives through jointly developed content. Transforming the absent into a describable reality—that is the art in science.

The collaboration between the Frankfurter Kunstverein and Senckenberg is always a great pleasure. We hope that visitors will feel and take away this enthusiasm when experiencing the exhibition.

Prof Dr Andreas Mulch,
Director, Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum Frankfurt

Prof Dr Andreas Mulch has been a professor at the Institute of Geosciences at the Goethe University Frankfurt since 2010 and Director of the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum Frankfurt since 2015. As a member of the Senckenberg Board of Directors, he is responsible for the research programme of the Senckenberg Society for Nature Research. The latter is one of the world’s leading institutions for natural and biodiversity research, with eight institutes, three museums and around 850 employees operating globally. Andreas Mulch received his PhD from the University of Lausanne in 2004, and his work has taken him to the University of Minnesota, Stanford University and Leibniz University Hannover. His research focuses primarily on climate changes in Earth’s history and the relationships between climate and biodiversity changes, as well as mountain building. Andreas Mulch is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America and has held the A. Cox Professorship at Stanford University.

Since the beginning of mankind, Homo sapiens have endeavoured to understand their relationship to the world as a structure of meanings. Where do we come from? How do we relate to the other living beings that inhabit the planet with us? How are we part of an infinite universe? Spiritual beliefs and myths, but also scientific observations and the resulting world views change over time and are an expression of how we humans interpret our relationship to the world.

We are increasingly exploring and penetrating the world. We decipher connections, we organise, quantify and name. We have created ever more complex instruments to do this. We find methods, formulate verifiable theorems and establish causalities between cause and effect. Researchers describe the world as it is, both physically and biologically. They use science to formulate terms and concepts and constantly achieve verifiable results. They decode the world and follow methodical procedures that open up immense possibilities for action. In this way, we make the world available to us. But science does not set itself the task of asking about the meaningfulness of life.

And what does art do? Art leads everything back to us. It asks about the meaning of knowledge for us. Artists are concerned with perception, or rather, with the nature of experience itself. How we perceive, visually, linguistically and aesthetically, but also how the experience of life takes place as an existential experience of “being in the world”. And art can transform our relationship with the world through narratives, through images and sounds, through poetry, into an experience of resonance.

Both science and art have their origins in intuition, imagination and conjecture. While scientists have to create evidence, artists can proceed more freely and make associations and imagination the material of their narratives. The meaning of existence and the experience of transcendence can hardly be found in science. We humans have to find them within ourselves. And we often create symbols to do so.

The Presence of Absence highlights matter as a presence into which life imprints itself. Energy and life are potent yet transient. The interplay between life, energy and matter is a central theme of the exhibition.

The exhibition will spatially juxtapose exhibits that translate the abstract concept of the “presence of absence” into an expanded realm of thought from both artistic and scientific perspectives. Works by significant contemporary artists will engage in dialogue with scientific exhibits from geology and astrophysics, including casts from Pompeii, footprints of prehistoric humans from the Laetoli site in present-day Tanzania and replicas of prehistoric cave paintings.

The curatorial narrative explores the astrophysical phenomenon of black holes. Concepts of expansion, time and the infinite cosmos challenge our understanding. Simultaneously, they provoke questions about our identity and origins. Our planet hovers somewhere between the boundless and the eternal. For a fleeting moment, the window of our lives opens, revealing the unique experience of our existence through our bodies, senses and minds. Each exhibit, in its own distinct way, engages with this existential exploration of being and humanity across the dimensions of space and time.

With this exhibition, we also trace the origins of art as a fundamental human desire to express abstract ideas. Why did Homo sapiens, tens of thousands of years ago, carve animal figures and abstract geometric shapes into the walls of deep caves? Why did they create images of things that were understood by others as symbols, serving as a connection to higher, non-manifest, spiritual realms? Why did Homo sapiens, unlike other species, develop a need for transcendence?

One of the countless stories and myths that moved us is recorded by Pliny the Elder in his Natural History, written around 77 years AD, shortly before he met his death in the fiery ash rain of Pompeii: the myth of Butades of Sicyon, the Corinthian potter, and his daughter. The story goes like this: the young girl loved a young man who had to leave for a long journey. As the separation approached, the girl drew the outline of her lover’s head against the wall where the light of the fire fell. The father, moved by her plight, filled in this shadow image with colour and made a clay imprint of the outline, which he then fired. According to Pliny’s myth, art arises from the desire to capture the transient and fleeting; to preserve it out of wistfulness and longing, absence and memory, but also out of love and through beauty. This parable is touching because it embodies such fundamental feelings.

The outline, the stone wall and the fire—doesn’t this remind you of the earliest cave paintings and engravings found by palaeoanthropologists and archaeologists on every continent? Were these the origin of art at the dawn of humanity?

The oldest evidence is attributed to the Blombos Cave in South Africa, dating back 140,000 years. With the migrations of Homo sapiens, cave art spread across every continent. Despite such incredibly extended time periods, this early art exhibits similar techniques and motifs. These seem to have been passed down from group to group, from generation to generation, long before the physiological evolution of the larynx and brain suggested the emergence of language and writing.

For tens of thousands of years, humans—early artists—created images of animals, human figures and abstract signs. Did they grapple with the same questions and ideas that modern humans do?

The cave paintings of the San people in South Africa and Botswana, or those from the Magdalenian culture of the Stone Age in Europe, served as a readable visual language for early humans. They depicted the experienced environment while also representing the spiritual cosmos of these ancient people. The stone walls, where humans created their paintings, far from the outside world and deep in the darkness of the earth, were more than just canvases. They were like a skin that separated this world from the other. Negative forms and imprints of human hands have been found in caves on every continent. These suggest the magic of contact, the touch of a hand on the surface of the rock as a gateway to another world. Leaving a handprint may have been part of a sacred act of connection with an invisible beyond—a transcendental experience. It is evidence of the primordial human need and eternal quest for a deeper relationship with a reality beyond the individual.

Awe in the face of nature. The feeling that there is more than we know. The striving to understand, to perceive through both our senses and our minds the eternal structures that reveal the order of everything in this universe and ourselves as part of it.

Since the dawn of humanity, people have gazed at the night sky. “Mathematics is the language in which the book of the universe is written”, said Galileo Galilei. It is a way of assigning meaning to symbols that can then be read and understood by others. Mathematics is a universal language of human thought, and mathematical rules reflect the order found in all natural processes, whether it’s the Fibonacci sequence or Einstein’s equations. This makes mathematics the purest form of expressing universal principles. Music follows precise mathematical structures, the growth of plants, the sequence of tides and every form of existence can be described by mathematical equations. Yet, there remains so much that humanity does not yet understand. Time and again, the power of the human mind will strive to push these boundaries.

What is the origin of all matter on earth and in the infinity of the cosmos? What effects do natural events create that reshape the earth and affect people’s lives with their power? And how do people deal with the existential need to face eternity in their finiteness? What myths and images do they create in order to connect with the spiritual? Is art a way of immortalising oneself in time? The exhibition is dedicated to these questions, which have been driving the human imagination from prehistoric times to the present day. Ever since we humans have existed on earth, we have created stories, symbols and signs to give form to our feelings, thoughts and knowledge, to leave traces in time and perhaps to connect with eternity.

We experience the miracle of reality through the senses of our body. This consists of the elements of exploding stars in space: the nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our bones, the iron in our blood and the carbon in our cells. In fleeting moments, we connect with eternity and give traces of existence a material form. Art is one way of doing this.

I would like to thank Claudio Parmiggiani, Indigo and Mayo Bucher, the sons of Heidi Bucher, Toni R. Toivonen, Petra Noordkamp, the artists of the Marshmallow Laser Feast collective and Lawrence Malstaf, as well as the institutional lenders, Dr Gabriel Zuchtriegel and the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, Prof Dr Fabio Martini and Dr Lapo Baglioni of the Florentine Museum and Institute of Prehistory “Paolo Graziosi”, the Natural History Museum Vienna, the LWL-Museum of Natural History in Münster, Nicolò Stabile, founder of the initiative Il Cretto è casa mia of the survivors of the earthquake in the town of Gibellina, as well as the photographer Giuseppe Ippolito, the VR creator Alberto Stabile and the writer Giovanna Giordano. I would like to thank the Italian Consulate General for its patronage. I would especially like to thank Prof Dr Andreas Mulch, Director of the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum Frankfurt, and Prof Dr Luciano Rezzolla from the Institute for Theoretical Physics at the Goethe University Frankfurt for a time of joint thinking and working.

Franziska Nori
Director Frankfurter Kunstverein

Franziska Nori and I met at a workshop on the New Senckenberg Natural History Museum in early 2019. Franziska deeply impressed me with her speech. She said “art can open up new perspectives” and ideally “creates ‘sublime moments’ that have transformative character”. Since then, we have maintained close communication, especially regarding the exhibition “Trees of Life”, developed in collaboration with Senckenberg nature museum, and the exhibition “The Intelligence of Plants”. Why do we collaborate? Why do I, as a biodiversity researcher, find it exciting and meaningful to collaborate with the director of an art institution? And what role do “sublime moments” play?

Biodiversity on our planet is under dramatic threat. In the first Global Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), published in 2019, it was scientifically established that of the approximately 8 million species on Earth, 1 million species are threatened with extinction. There is a particularly high level of endangerment with over 60 percent of palm fern species, 40 percent of amphibian species (such as frogs, toads and salamanders), and almost 40 percent of coral species. Furthermore, the populations of many species are declining dramatically. The Living Planet Index, which reflects species’ abundance, shows a decline of over 60 percent over a 50-year period. In Germany and Europe, we observe declines primarily in species of agricultural landscapes, i.e. fields, meadows and pastures, with a nearly 60 percent decrease in bird species over a 37-year period.

In addition to species, also natural ecosystems are disappearing and being converted into human-used and often degraded ecosystems. Half of all ecosystems have already been significantly altered. In the last 30 years, the extent of natural forests has decreased by an area equivalent to twelve times the size of the Federal Republic of Germany. In Germany, only 4 percent of previously extensive peatlands remain as conservation areas.

Changes in biodiversity have consequences for nature’s contributions to people. Biodiversity is the foundation of human life: almost everything we humans use is made available through biodiversity. Material contributions from nature include air to breathe, clean drinking water, food, building materials, energy, fibres and medicines. Regulatory contributions include pollination, seed dispersal, natural forest regeneration, climate regulation and the formation of fertile soils. Finally, biodiversity provides a wide range of non-material contributions: beauty, relaxation, recreation and mental health, spirituality, home and identity. The loss of biodiversity also affects the contributions of nature. According to scientific consensus (IPBES Global Assessment Report 2019), all but three of the 27 subcategories of nature’s contributions are declining; the only contributions increasing are areas for food and animal feed cultivation, energy crops (e.g. oil palm) and materials (e.g. cotton). Ecosystems are clearly managed for short-term human productivity.

What are the causes of biodiversity loss? There are five major direct drivers, the so-called “Big Five” of biodiversity loss. First is land use, primarily agriculture. Agricultural land is currently being massively expanded, especially in tropical countries, leading to the destruction of natural ecosystems such as forests, savannas, grasslands and wetlands. In Germany and Europe, the decline of species in agricultural landscapes is mainly due to intensive agricultural practices, including high use of fertilizers and pesticides, large-scale monocultures and the disappearance of hedges, trees, streams and fallow land. Second is the exploitation of species, mainly affecting the oceans; over 35 percent of commercially exploited fish stocks are currently overfished. In addition, climate change, pollution and the introduction of non-native, so-called “exotic” species are significant drivers.

However, behind these direct drivers are indirect or deep drivers that cause changes in land use and species exploitation. These include demographic and socio-cultural changes, such as population growth, increasing per capita consumption of natural resources and a shift toward a more meat-based diet. Other factors include economic and technological changes, changes in institutions and governance, conflicts and epidemics. These factors include increasing prosperity and the institutional and technological capabilities for global supply chains.

From a scientific perspective, it is clear that the loss of biodiversity and its contributions to humanity are already affecting the health, wealth and well-being of many people today. With further declines in biodiversity and its contributions to people, an even larger population is at risk. But what can we do to initiate a turnaround, to halt further biodiversity loss, and ideally, promote biodiversity again?

At the forefront of measures are international agreements, such as the Convention on Biological Diversity, established at the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992 and subsequently signed by 196 nations. At the 15th Conference of the Parties in Montreal at the end of 2022, known as the World Biodiversity Summit, new targets were agreed upon. These include the goal to effectively protect 30 percent of land and marine areas by 2030, restore 30 percent of degraded land and marine areas by 2030 and promote sustainable land and forest management and fisheries. The great strength of these agreements is that they are international agreements that nearly all countries on earth have agreed to. Unfortunately, there are no legal instruments to enforce these goals: The International Court of Justice does not address these issues, and there is no world police force. Nevertheless, all countries on earth have a moral obligation to implement these goals, and it is the responsibility of civil society and the media to demand their enforcement.

International science-policy interfaces also play a central role in biodiversity conservation. The relevant international interface between science and policy for biodiversity is the aforementioned IPBES. It is the equivalent of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which was established many years ago for the topic of climate. The IPBES assesses the state of knowledge and action options for individual world regions and also globally. A key finding of previous reports is that the protection and promotion of biodiversity cannot be achieved through isolated measures. This means that the establishment of protected areas or the reduced use of pesticides, while good and necessary measures, will not be sufficient to preserve biodiversity. Instead, a socio-ecological transformation is demanded, defined as a fundamental system-wide transformation of society as a whole, including politics, law, economy, science and civil society (IPBES Global Assessment Report 2019).

In addition, there are thousands of scientific publications that have examined the impact of humans on biodiversity and the consequences for ecosystems and people. Biodiversity models play a particularly important role in these publications. These models work similarly to the more well-known climate models: they are parameterized and validated with existing data and established relationships, then used to create alternative future scenarios. These scenarios offer alternative futures that predict a positive development, stabilization or further decline of biodiversity depending on the measures taken. A particularly comprehensive and ambitious study by David Leclère and co-authors from 2020 concludes that with a package of three sets of measures, we can stop the decline of biodiversity by 2030 and achieve an increase in biodiversity by 2050. The packages of measures are: 1. large, well-managed protected areas plus ecosystem restoration, 2. productive but sustainable agriculture and forestry, and more trade, and 3. changes in our consumption and dietary behaviour toward less food waste and, for countries like Germany, a more plant-based diet. This study shows, an increase in biodiversity is possible! This is very positive news. We need positive images and stories for the future.

When addressing changes and measures, it is helpful to distinguish between shallow and deep leverage points in the system (Meadows 1999, Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System). Shallow leverage points address parameters, such as the toxicity of pesticides. Deep leverage points address thought patterns and paradigms on which the system is based. Measures taken to protect biodiversity have so far focused more on shallow leverage points, such as establishing protected areas. Measures targeting deep leverage points, on the other hand, are very rarely applied. Admittedly, these deep leverage points are very difficult to access. Nevertheless, approaches to deep leverage points, thought patterns and paradigms have enormous potential to bring about truly deep and sustainable, long-term changes toward better human-nature relationships.

This is where art comes in (among other things). The experience of “sublime moments” can shake a person’s thought patterns so deeply that it can create a willingness to fundamentally question and perhaps even change their own attitudes, preferences and behaviours. This is the reason (or at least one of the reasons) why I collaborate with Franziska Nori as a biodiversity researcher. Deep leverage points in a system are virtually inaccessible to natural scientists, but they may (perhaps) be reached through art.

However, initiating a turnaround in the conservation of biodiversity remains a huge challenge. The design of socio-ecological transformations is complex and complicated. The good news, however, is that everyone can contribute to the necessary transformations. To make the number of possible measures manageable and concrete, Friederike Bauer and I have developed a catalogue of ten measures in our book Vom Verschwinden der Arten: Der Kampf um die Zukunft der Menschheit  (Böhning-Gaese and Bauer 2023, Vom Verschwinden der Arten), which we consider to be the ten most effective based on our collective experience. Each measure addresses different sectors of society:

1. Protect 30 percent of the Earth, with 30 percent of that under strict protection by 2030 (politics and conservation). By 2030, at least 30 percent of the Earth’s surface should be effectively protected (not just on paper), up from the current 17 percent on land and 8 percent in the ocean; 30 percent of that, meaning 10 percent of the total area, should have minimal human intervention – as wilderness. These areas can then serve as arks of biodiversity for the future. …
2. Globally increase the share of organic farming to 25 percent by 2030 (politics and agriculture). Organic farming promotes biodiversity. Currently, it accounts for around 9 percent in Europe and only 1.5 percent worldwide. Expanding organic farming, both in Europe and in the global South, benefits the health of nature, crop plants and animals and therefore, human health.
3. Gradually reduce harmful subsidies for nature by at least $500 billion annually by 2030 (politics). Currently, exorbitant sums are spent on promoting fossil fuels, environmentally damaging agriculture and fisheries. These funds must be redirected to support biodiversity-friendly measures such as rewilding and organic farming, and to mitigate social hardships. …
4. Establish global reporting requirements for companies and the financial sector regarding their impact on biodiversity by 2030 (politics and businesses). Such reporting requirements make the negative (and positive) impact of the economy on nature visible and measurable. This is likely to lead to a change in business thinking, a redirection of investments and new business models. Because: There is no business on a dead planet.
5. Increase the share of Green Bonds financing conservation from the current 3 percent to 30 percent by 2030 (financial sector). Currently, Green Bonds primarily focus on climate protection, such as wind and solar power. While this is fundamentally important, we need more financial products that channel funds into the preservation of nature, biodiversity conservation or organic farming.
6. Radically reduce meat consumption to a maximum of 300 grams per person per week, with a maximum of 100 grams of red meat, preferably from pasture-raised animals (everyone). Currently, around 70 percent of arable land worldwide is used for animal feed, rather than directly serving human nutrition. Reducing meat consumption is a crucial step to free up land for biodiversity or human nutrition, even with further population growth. …
7. Minimize food waste as much as possible (everyone, restaurants, businesses). Europe alone wastes 173 kilograms of food per person per year, roughly half a kilogram per day. Minimizing this practice saves land for cultivation. It also helps discover the value of food, is enjoyable and is easy on the wallet.
8. Spend fifteen minutes a day or two hours a week engaging with nature (everyone). Greening the balcony, growing vegetables, taking walks in the park, going into the woods, discussing herbs with others, etc. This engagement helps develop or maintain a closer relationship with nature and a better understanding of its diverse values. You only protect what you love, and you only love what you know. Moreover, it promotes relaxation, well-being and demonstrable health benefits.
9. Green cities wherever possible; balconies, roofs, sidewalks, courtyards, etc. (municipal administrations, everyone). This benefits biodiversity, cools urban areas and enhances our health and well-being. Diversity is important here too: trees and shrubs with flowers and berries instead of thuja, meadows instead of lawns, deadwood instead of borders – and it can all look a little untidy.
10. Media, films, books, exhibitions and educational materials must seriously engage with nature, neither exaggerating nor ignoring it (journalists, educators and artists). The subject of nature must be integrated into the politics and economics sections of newspapers, not just relegated to the “Miscellaneous” or “Panorama” sections. It is about more than koalas, gorillas and tigers: it is about connections, ecosystems and nature as a foundation of existence. This requires engaging stories and images that reach people in various ways and remind us that every individual matters (Böhning-Gaese and Bauer 2023, Vom Verschwinden der Arten).

We can thus see that art has the potential to contribute to the necessary socio-ecological transformations; and maybe it even has a duty to do so?

Katrin Böhning-Gaese, Director Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre