Ines Doujak: Living on Air

14. Juni 2026 – 13. September 2026

Exhibition opening: Sunday, June 14, 2026, at 11 a.m.

Ines Doujak’s fearless body of work, which has unfolded over decades in the form of performances, collages, sculptures, and public interventions, examines humanity’s impact on the Earth, ecology, and microbiology. She does so through aesthetic strategies of shock and humor. Doujak uses exaggeration as a means of critique as she examines the violent effects of global capitalism, human trafficking, and exploitation. She reflects on contagion in the broadest sense and addresses the connections between land grabbing, pandemics, capitalism, patriarchy, and current ecological and political crises of power. Doujak mobilizes empathy and fiction as vehicles for a deeper understanding of human experience and employs wit and humor to convey historical insights into long-standing oppression and the systemic forces that perpetuate it. She employs horizontality and cooperation as strategies of resistance.

The solo exhibition *LIVING ON AIR* by Ines Doujak features, among other works, the unsettling series *Ghost Peoples* (2015–ongoing). These collages are composed of historical prints of botanical charts and medical books from the early 20th century. The series addresses the globalization of pathogens and diseases that accompanied the European invasion of the Americas and the subsequent Atlantic triangular trade. Africa was added to the mix with the arrival of the deadly slave ships. The bodies in Doujak’s collages are hybrids assembled from fragments, created through a process of de- and refiguration. The classification of living beings, as practiced in Western science since antiquity, has always been only seemingly neutral. In fact, hierarchies were created to separate the genuine from the inauthentic and the pure from the impure. Throughout history, crises have repeatedly produced scapegoats. These include animals, which bear the burden of collective fears and are blamed for social ills, ranging from environmental destruction attributed to so-called invasive species to the new era of pandemics, in which animals are stigmatized as disease carriers. At the Kunstverein Arnsberg, Doujak presents a new work that explores recurring patterns of blame and shaming that arise at the intersections of social inequalities. The work highlights scapegoating mechanisms that transcend time and demographics. In doing so, it perpetuates deep-seated inequalities that divert attention from systemic failures. Since our culture is strongly shaped by “speciesism,” the work also analyzes mechanisms of dehumanization that underlie prejudices against both marginalized human groups and non-human animals. The erosion of the common good and inadequate public infrastructure worldwide have intensified in recent years. Consequently, emergencies generate not only scapegoats but also powerful resistance, which is expressed through solidarity rather than shame.

The work *ANIMAL PROCESS 1: THE PIG* enables us to recognize these patterns and to focus on collective care rather than individual blame—as a possible path toward a more just social order.
At the conclusion of the exhibition, visitors are presented with the film Masterless Voices in the final room. The film analyzes the extent to which the history of globalization influences today’s sociocultural conditions. It traces the roots of carnival back to patterns of exploitation, labor, and trade, but also to rebellion and joy. In this work, Doujak combines her sculpturally expressive visual language—characteristic of the visual arts—with her deep fascination for the world of carnival and public parades, marked by exuberant energy and exuberant joy.

Parade for the Arnsberg Cultural Summer 2026
June 28, 2026, 4:00 p.m.
Hope Against Hope (2023 – ongoing)

3:00 p.m.: Meet at Neumarkt (line-up & costume change), 4:00 p.m.: Start of the parade, duration: approx. 2 hours
6:00 p.m.: Wrap-up with a party and performances in the garden of the Kunstverein Arnsberg

Kunstverein Arnsberg, artist Ines Doujak, and the City of Arnsberg’s Cultural Office invite you to an artistic parade on June 28, 2026, at 4 p.m. We stand against capitalist and patriarchal exploitation. We celebrate courage—beyond the human. Hope is an act of resistance!

The parade winds its way through the city along the Ruhr—a flowing mass of voices, images, and sounds. At its center: a rolling kiosk. Its numbers tell of struggles—of land defenders and water activists, of resistance that takes root and carries on. Buttons and pamphlets circulate like fragments of shared knowledge. A stretcher carrying a hyena and a raven, two sharks, flags, and costumed performers move through the space—a gathering beyond the human, polyphonic, defiant, alert. Songs rise up, written and composed specifically for this occasion. Texts are spoken into the city through megaphones—they echo, overlap, and tear open. Together with local groups, a moment of public space emerges: a pause in the flow, a collective questioning. What can become? What must be defended? And how do we want to live? We welcome everyone who wants to help carry, join in, sing along, organize, or support.

The exhibition and parade are funded by the Kunststiftung NRW and the City of Arnsberg.

BIOGRAFIE

Since the 1990s, Ines Doujak has been developing a multidisciplinary practice that encompasses photography, performance, film, and installation. She works with both political theory and natural and man-made objects to deconstruct the political implications of sexist and racist stereotypes. Doujak’s meticulous research and her distinctive narrative talent enable her to combine scholarship with the grotesque to reveal structures of social exploitation and inequalities that are often linked to colonial power relations. Drawing on the traditions of carnival, masquerade, and cultural-historical motifs, she examines social hierarchies and exposes the mechanisms underlying them. Doujak has presented her work at the following institutions and exhibitions, among others:
Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz (2025, 2018), Hamburger Kunsthalle (2025), Kunsthaus Wien (2021), Liverpool Biennial (2021), NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (2020), Bergen Assembly (2019), Centro de Iniciativas Culturales de la Universidad de Sevilla (2018), steirischer herbst (2018), Kochi-Muziris Biennale (2018), Belvedere Vienna (2018), Dhaka Art Summit (2018), Para Site Hong Kong (2018), Bunkier Sztuki Krakow (2017), Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart (2016), MACBA Barcelona (2015), Kyiv Biennial (2015), São Paulo Biennial (2014), Royal College of Art London (2013), Busan Biennale (2012), Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2010), and documenta 12 (2007).
In 2022, she received the Austrian Art Prize for Visual Arts.