Special Cooperations
Ökologie der Geister
Opening at the Learning and remembrance site Notaufnahmelager: February 6, 2026
Kick-off event exhibition Tina Kohlmann: Magic Muscle at the Blumencorso: February 13, 2026, 7 pm
A collaboration with Justus Liebig University
Ökologie der Geister (Eng. Ecology of Spirits) is a collaborative project of Kunsthalle Giessen and the Institute of Art Education at Justus Liebig University that engages with the social upheavals currently destabilizing existing relations and leading to profound uncertainties. At the same time, it seeks constructive approaches toward new ways of shaping society: through artistic means, sites in Giessen are temporarily transformed into open stages for democratic thinking and action, as well as into spaces for individual stories. Ecology of Spirits brings art into the public realm—accessible, participatory, and surprising. It invites people of all generations to engage with democratic values, sustainability, and the spirits of history and the present. It also asks about the individual perspectives of the city’s inhabitants. To this end, significant locations in Giessen are artistically activated, inclusively experienced, and mediated. In this way, art connects the city’s public spaces with the individual stories of its population.
The eighteen-month project (February 2026 to summer 2027) begins with an opening event at the memorial site Erstaufnahmelager (6 February), followed by an artistic activation titled “Magic Muscle” at the festival center Blumencorso (Opening 13 February) by the Frankfurt-based artist Tina Kohlmann.
Tina Kohlmann (*1977 in Worms), who completed her studies at the Offenbach University of Art and Design and at the Städelschule Frankfurt in 2006, works with installations, performances, and sculptures at the intersections of fashion, traditional dress, ethnological artifacts, and historical craft techniques. Her particular interest lies in the cultures of Indigenous peoples in the Arctic Circle, especially their diverse relationships to nature, science, and spirituality. In her artistic works—some of which she further develops from found materials such as textiles and bones—playful yet assured associations emerge: masks made from nylon ropes with blinking LED eyes, treated carpets, and sweatshirts fitted with seal fur intersect different cultural spheres, temporalities, and modes of thought, forming a pop-cultural panorama of the present.
Fig.: Tina Kohlmann, Alteration of the Gap, 2020. Courtesy of the artist.
© Stadttheater Gießen, Foto: Maja Mirek
(Re)Spacing – Dance performance
Wednesday, April 1, 2026, 7 pm, KUNSTHALLE GIESSEN
A collaboration with the Stadttheater Gießen
Members of the dance ensemble of the Stadttheater Gießen create a performance referring to the previous exhibition Roméo Mivekannin: Les gens ne disent presque rien by the French-Beninese artist Roméo Mivekannin.
Fig.: Installation view, Sibylle Ruppert at Wilhelm Hallen, Berlin
Kunsthalle goes to Berlin: On the occasion of Berlin Art Week, the Kunsthalle presented Sibylle Ruppert at the Wilhelm Hallen.
Saturday, September 6 – Sunday, September 14, 2025
A collaboration with Wilhem Hallen, Berlin
Curated by Dr. Nadia Ismail
On the occasion of Berlin Art Week 2025, the KUNSTHALLE GIESSEN presented a comprehensive solo exhibition of Frankfurt-born artist Sibylle Ruppert (1942–2011) at the Wilhelm Hallen in Reinickendorf. The presentation was part of HALLEN 06, the sixth edition of the art festival, which this year celebrated its largest iteration to date with more than 9,000 square meters of exhibition space.
Writing in the German daily taz, Anna Meinecke noted:
“The Kunsthalle Giessen occupies a space with grotesque-erotic imagery by Sibylle Ruppert, a friend of HR Giger. Director Nadia Ismail hopes for synergies that will benefit both the artist and the institution.
‘Ruppert was ahead of her time, and in a male-dominated art world her masterful drawings—at times featuring violent, pornographic content—were not appreciated,’ she says. ‘I hope she will receive the long-overdue recognition she deserves, even if posthumously.’ The presence at the Wilhelm Hallen is intended to contribute to this.”
Fig: Aisling O’Carroll, The Temple of Science, installation view, 2024. Photo: Moritz Bernoully
INSIDE OUT #4
Aisling O’Carroll
The Temple of Science
04.11.- 10.11.24
Opening: Monday, 04.11.24, 6 pm
Exhibition in the Window of the Kunsthalle and online here
In cooperation with Panel on Planetary Thinking, Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen
Curated by Theresa Deichert
Fig.: Aisling O’Carroll
The Temple of Science examines the entwined geological, glaciological, and human histories of the Unteraar glacier in the Bernese Alps through a reconstruction of the Hôtel des Neuchâtelois. The Hôtel des Neuchâtelois was an improvised mountain hut occupied by a group of glaciologists during their summer expeditions in 1840 and 1841. The hut was built under the shelter of a huge erratic block of micaceous schist found on the Unteraar glacier’s medial moraine. The mountain hut was lost when the boulder broke apart in the winter of 1842. Its brief existence registers a moment when geological, glaciological, and human timescales converged in the valley.
The Hôtel has since been romanticized as the ‘Temple of Science’ in Western scientific and Alpine narratives, bolstering the authority and intrepidity of the expeditioners in the landscape. Using evidence from both fieldwork and archives, this 1:5 scale reconstruction of the hut offers an alternative ‘Temple of Science’ for today. In place of the original dry-stone wall, the mirrored enclosure of this version reflects and invites different perspectives — from both humans and non-humans. It aims to expand whose knowledge is valued in the Temple of Science. The reconstruction encourages fresh ways of understanding long-term planetary changes, helping us rethink dominant models of environmental knowledge.
Aisling O‘Carroll is a designer, researcher, and landscape architect. Her work uses experimental methods to reconstruct landscape histories from diverse material archives, including drawings, photographs, written accounts, geological records, and botanical material. She is a Lecturer at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, where she is currently completing her PhD in Architectural Design.
Accompanying Programm
Opening + Meet & Greet
with Aisling O’Carrol and Charlotte Wrigley
Monday, 04.11.2024, 6:00 pm
Kunsthalle Giessen
Film & Artist Talk (in English):
Tuesday, 05.11.2024, 6:30 pm
Last Things (Deborah Stratman, 2023)
Talk with Aisling O‘Carroll & Lukáš Likavčan
Kinocenter Giessen, Bahnhofstrasse 34, 35390 Giessen
Download the invite here
The Hôtel has since been romanticized as the ‘Temple of Science’ in Western scientific and Alpine narratives, bolstering the authority and intrepidity of the expeditioners in the landscape. Using evidence from both fieldwork and archives, this 1:5 scale reconstruction of the hut offers an alternative ‘Temple of Science’ for today. In place of the original dry-stone wall, the mirrored enclosure of this version reflects and invites different perspectives — from both humans and non-humans. It aims to expand whose knowledge is valued in the Temple of Science. The reconstruction encourages fresh ways of understanding long-term planetary changes, helping us rethink dominant models of environmental knowledge.
Aisling O‘Carroll is a designer, researcher, and landscape architect. Her work uses experimental methods to reconstruct landscape histories from diverse material archives, including drawings, photographs, written accounts, geological records, and botanical material. She is a Lecturer at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, where she is currently completing her PhD in Architectural Design.
Accompanying Programm
Opening + Meet & Greet
with Aisling O’Carrol and Charlotte Wrigley
Monday, 04.11.2024, 6:00 pm
Kunsthalle Giessen
Film & Artist Talk (in English):
Tuesday, 05.11.2024, 6:30 pm
Last Things (Deborah Stratman, 2023)
Talk with Aisling O‘Carroll & Lukáš Likavčan
Kinocenter Giessen, Bahnhofstrasse 34, 35390 Giessen
Download the invite here
Fig: The body of a dead Russian soldier in the car of a search party. The bodies collected are taken to the local morgue. Ukrainian officers estimate that around 100 Russian soldiers died in the attack. Voznesenk, 15.03.2022. Photo courtesy Vincent Haiges.
Panel discussion
Depictions of Excessive Use of Force – Between Disturbance and Attraction
In cooperation with TraCe Research Center for Transformation of Political Violence
Wednesday, 30.10.24, 6 pm
On site or via Livestream: https://www.youtube.com/@TraCe_Violence/
How do images of violence affect us? When do they become voyeuristic spectacles, and when are they necessary documents? The public dialogue panel sheds light on depictions of excessive violence in reporting, art, and social media, and connects perspectives from both academia and practice. We aim to bring together views from the research center “Transformations of Political Violence” (TraCe) as well as from journalism, war photography, and exhibition practices to discuss the visual portrayal of excessive violence in various media contexts, especially focusing on the boundaries of what can be shown. The dialogue panel will be professionally livestreamed on YouTube.
Welcome: Nadia Ismail (Director of the Kunsthalle Giessen) & Katharina Lorenz (President of Justus Liebig University Giessen)
Panel: Larissa-Diana Fuhrmann (TraCe), Vincent Haiges (war photographer), Claudia Hattendorff (art historian), & Cornelia Wegerhoff (journalist)
Moderation: Tina Cramer
The event will be held in German.
Admission is free.
No pre-registration is required.
The panel marks the opening of the two-day 2024 annual academic conference of TraCe, which will feature 13 short presentations and three keynotes, spanning a wide conceptual arc: from international excessive violence and its legal frameworks in history and the present, to civil wars, domestic violence, and questions of justice following the use of excessive violence.
Excessive violence is not a new phenomenon. However, recent developments in the exercise of political violence increasingly challenge existing norms and practices aimed at curbing it. In the face of new forms of warfare, evolving terrorist violence, and rising disregard for international humanitarian law, humanity is under pressure. These transformations in political violence also challenge our ability to understand, analyze, and, ideally, mitigate or resolve the growing number and intensification of conflicts. The contributions at the 2024 TraCe annual conference, hosted by Justus Liebig University Giessen, will tackle the challenge of understanding these phenomena from sociocultural, historical, and empirical perspectives, while seeking normative solutions.
The research center “Transformations of Political Violence” (TraCe) is an interdisciplinary research network of five Hessian institutions: the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF), Goethe University Frankfurt, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Philipps University Marburg, and Technical University Darmstadt. TraCe is supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).
Welcome: Nadia Ismail (Director of the Kunsthalle Giessen) & Katharina Lorenz (President of Justus Liebig University Giessen)
Panel: Larissa-Diana Fuhrmann (TraCe), Vincent Haiges (war photographer), Claudia Hattendorff (art historian), & Cornelia Wegerhoff (journalist)
Moderation: Tina Cramer
The event will be held in German.
Admission is free.
No pre-registration is required.
The panel marks the opening of the two-day 2024 annual academic conference of TraCe, which will feature 13 short presentations and three keynotes, spanning a wide conceptual arc: from international excessive violence and its legal frameworks in history and the present, to civil wars, domestic violence, and questions of justice following the use of excessive violence.
Excessive violence is not a new phenomenon. However, recent developments in the exercise of political violence increasingly challenge existing norms and practices aimed at curbing it. In the face of new forms of warfare, evolving terrorist violence, and rising disregard for international humanitarian law, humanity is under pressure. These transformations in political violence also challenge our ability to understand, analyze, and, ideally, mitigate or resolve the growing number and intensification of conflicts. The contributions at the 2024 TraCe annual conference, hosted by Justus Liebig University Giessen, will tackle the challenge of understanding these phenomena from sociocultural, historical, and empirical perspectives, while seeking normative solutions.
The research center “Transformations of Political Violence” (TraCe) is an interdisciplinary research network of five Hessian institutions: the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF), Goethe University Frankfurt, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Philipps University Marburg, and Technical University Darmstadt. TraCe is supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).