Ines Doujak: Living on Air

14. Juni 2026 – 13. September 2026

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

With *LIVING ON AIR*, the Kunstverein Arnsberg is presenting a solo exhibition by the artist Ines Doujak.

How can art bring people together? We believe that art should have the opportunity to bring people together and create new visions of coexistence. Ines Doujak’s works are complex and interconnected, infusing beauty with a spirit of playfulness and joy. Despite the omnipresence of violence and the failure of a globalized world, Doujak continues to find hope in shared discourse. In the spirit of political satire, she combines grotesque, subcultural aesthetics with intimate narratives to expose patriarchal power structures and their entanglements with capital. Her works are unsettling, yet remain open to ambivalence and unexpected connections.

Since the 1990s, Doujak has been creating a body of work comprising collages, sculptures, performances, and films that explores the impact of human activity on the Earth, ecology, and microbiology. In doing so, she combines scientific research with humor, exaggeration, and a visual language that is often striking.

The exhibition unfolds as a spatial choreography: visitors move through a sequence of situations in which film, sculpture, and text-based works coalesce into condensed states. Between collective ecstasy, visual excess, and institutional order, a dramaturgy emerges that addresses perception, the body, and political systems in equal measure.

The exhibition opens with a darkened room in which the film *Masterless Voices* (2014), created in collaboration with John Barker, unfolds as a polyphonic musical poem. The film traces the roots of Carnival back to patterns of exploitation, labor, and trade, but also to rebellion and joy. Here, Doujak combines her sculpturally expressive visual language with her fascination for the joyful power of public parades and collective rituals. Subsequently, objects and collages coalesce into a multi-layered visual landscape. Historical botanical and medical depictions merge with body fragments and plant elements to form hybrid figures. The series Geistervolk (since 2015) refers to global circulations of knowledge, disease, and power and questions the supposed neutrality of scientific classification systems. Recurring sculptural figures permeate the exhibition and appear in transitional spaces and thresholds. They observe, intervene, or evade clear-cut roles, connecting the individual situations into an open narrative.

At the heart of the exhibition is the installation *ANIMAL TRIAL 1: THE PIG* (2026), which stages an oppressive courtroom scene. A metal container tilted slightly forward forms the core of a setting in which visitors position themselves: sitting, listening, observing. Wanted posters permeate the space, coalescing into a system of accusation, categorization, and control. The work examines recurring mechanisms of blame that arise at the intersections of social inequalities. Throughout history, crises have repeatedly produced scapegoats, including animals blamed for environmental destruction or disease. In doing so, Doujak also brings the concept of “speciesism” into focus and examines mechanisms of dehumanization that affect both marginalized groups and non-human animals.

An integral part of the exhibition is the parade Hope Against Hope (since 2023), which connects the exhibition space with the urban landscape. It highlights the struggles of activists worldwide who are fighting against land grabbing and environmental destruction, and demonstrates how collective action can emerge from apparent powerlessness.

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

The 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 are celebrating courage—beyond the human. Hoffnung ist ein Akt des Widerstands!

The parade moves along the Ruhr through the city—a flowing mass of voices, images, and sounds. A platform carrying a hyena and a raven, two sharks, flags, and costumed performers winds its way through the space, a gathering beyond the human, polyphonic, defiant, alert. Songs rise up, written and composed especially for the occasion. Together with local groups, a moment of public engagement 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 would like 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.

BIOGRAPHY

Ines Doujak has presented her work at the following institutions and exhibitions, among others:
 Lentos Art Museum 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.