Mona Suhrbier and Alice Pawlik have already heard of many injuries caused by inequality and claims to power.
They are stories of people with wounds that still hurt today because their ancestors had land stolen from them or their ancestors were expelled and enslaved.
Even more than usual, the curators have dealt with the imbalance that colonialism has left in the countries once subjugated by European powers during the preparation of their new major exhibition in Frankfurt's Weltkulturen Museum.
And that is the result of an arrogant, natural resources exploiting and disrespectful treatment of other cultures.
Catherine Deschka
Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.
Follow I follow
In conversations with activists, indigenous minorities, scientists and artists from different nations, they have repeatedly heard about the search for a new balance.
The impression that something finally has to be changed now, they say, the desire to overcome the crisis has always come up again and again.
The search for a new balance
The idea for an exhibition about "healing" and a "life in balance" was developed independently of one another, the America curator Suhrbier and the curator for visual anthropology Pawlik, who work together in the museum on Schaumainkai in Frankfurt.
They decided to set up a joint exhibition.
In order to present positions of coping, they selected eleven artists who worked out of the crisis, says Suhrbier.
Working together on all the details was important to them.
Together they developed all the rooms of the show with the artists and wrote all the texts, they say.
The pandemic intervened and made their work difficult.
However, it has made many people aware of the fragility of living conditions, says Pawlik.
Just like other events: The extreme heat of these days shows the endangerment of our landscapes as well as the burning forests and falling glaciers.
It would be beneficial to take a closer look at the close connection between man and nature.
"It's indigenous cultures that show that we humans are part of nature," says Pawlik.
"We must not consider ourselves separate from nature."
Caring for nature connects
The Lima-based painter Roldán Pinedo, for example, warns against the clearing of the primeval forests with his colorful, large-format tree portraits.
Immeasurable would be the loss of these plants as powerful helping spirits of shamans and purveyors of medicines, as he presents them.
The museum commissioned four tree paintings from him and acquired them in early 2021. With their help, from November 3, 2022, they can tell of the spiritual view of the trees of the rainforest - as knowledge passed down from the Shipibo tribe, to which the artist belongs.
In a video work, Ayrson Heráclito will also report on an animated nature that is closely connected to humans.
In the Afro-American religion Candomblé one believes in gods in water, trees and caves.
In a trance, people can connect with these gods in order to be healed in body and soul.
Concern for nature unites many in their search for healing, say Suhrbier and Pawlik.
In his installation Alejandro Durán will show the international plastic waste on a Mexican coast, the multimedia artist Roberta Carvalho develops portraits of indigenous people, projected onto leaves to depict the symbiotic relationship between people and trees.
listening to others
The exhibition organizers also want to illuminate the search for individual healing and show ways and possibilities of how others can overcome a crisis.
They refer to the filmmaker Marco del Fiol, who followed the performance artist Marina Abramović on her spiritual journey through Brazil.
And the meditations and mindfulness practices that photographer Michael O'Neill used to overcome his paralysis.
When working with the artists, they again noticed how constructed apparent contradictions are often.
"We are one humanity, we have a common responsibility," says Suhrbier.
She wants to show visitors respect for other views of the environment, the body and religiosity.
There are many voices, perspectives and stories to be heard about what can bring healing.
And maybe that's an essential part of healing: listening to others.
Allow other values to apply.
In any case, they hope to change the way their visitors see things, say the curators.
The collection of the Weltkulturen Museum is an inexhaustible source for this, says Suhrbier.
"It's an affair of the heart," adds Pawlik: "We're delighted to be doing the project."
Healing – Life in Balance, Weltkulturen Museum, Frankfurt, November 3, 2022 to September 3, 2023