Touch/ing Transformation – Optimistic Perspectives from Art, Design, and Science: A Media Installation

September 16, 2026 – January 7, 2027 at the Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn

What does climate change sound like? What happens when artists form collectives with parrots? How can colonial history be experienced through sewing? What can we learn from fungi about collaboration? Where does socially just urban planning take place?

Everything that is designed, produced, and used has an impact on our society as well as on planet Earth—so the question is not only how we can design in a socially just and environmentally sustainable way, but also how we can make the potential impacts of our decisions tangible.

“Touch/ing Transformation ” is a walk-through media installation that presents sustainability not as a final goal, but as a sphere of social action—as a process of change that is already underway. At its heart is an interactive media archive that invites visitors to intuitively discover current developments and complex interrelationships for themselves through an extensive collection of best practices.

These examples come from artists and designers who, in collaboration with scientists, develop alternative scenarios and visions of the future, help us understand material cycles, work on systemic innovations, or devise solutions to specific everyday problems. This process gives rise to critical works of art made from melting ice and the finest porcelain; things that seem useless become coveted—from plastic waste to urban wastelands. An entire orchestra makes the disappearance of common goods audible, while new ones are being created in intercultural neighborhoods.

Visitors can explore nearly 50 projects from the fields of art, design, and science through three large-scale touch walls, using interviews, videos, photographs, and texts to tailor their experience to their own interests and preferences. In addition, visitors can navigate the content independently and draw connections between individual projects and their protagonists. A relational model links these examples to the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and illustrates their potential sustainability impacts. A geographic map pinpoints this diversity: best practices, partners, and Sites of Transformation in North Rhine-Westphalia and far beyond come together here to form a network of engagement.

Sustainability is viewed here as an open-ended process. The Bundeskunsthalle thus becomes a space for inspiration that invites visitors to explore how transformation can take place on a societal level through collective thinking and action—in a dialogue between artistic, creative, and scientific practices. Through its collection of best practices, the media installation enriches and deepens our understanding of transformation while simultaneously demonstrating that it is something that can be collectively experienced, imagined, and put into practice.

An exhibition by transform.NRW – Shaping Sustainability Through Art, Culture, and Design. Curated collectively with all network partners, funded by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Designed by dform and BILDWERK, the installation is on view in the Media Art Space. Produced in cooperation with the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn.