Beyond Death präsentiert

Haunted by the ghosts of progress: a tour of lost futures

In the world today we’re no longer facing individual crises but a polycrisis of intersecting disasters. Climate breakdown. Extinction of species and ecosystems on an unprecedented level. The collapse of the international order and institutions of civil society. How did we get *here* when the arrow of history was supposed to point us to a better world of ever-increasing prosperity and progress? But maybe that’s the wrong question. What if our very notions of prosperity and progress were the good intentions that paved the road to this particular hell?

Samstag 31. Oktober 15 Uhr
Treffpunkt am Hofladen | Hermannstraße 99-105, 12051 Berlin

On this tour, we’ll explore the Neuer St Jacobi Friedhof as a graveyard of lost futures. From political deals made for cheap energy and cheap food to the consumer fantasy of paying for things you don’t need with money you don’t have, it is nearly always an impossible vision of the future that the present is traded for. And it is these ghosts of progress that haunt us now: in the form of fire, floods and droughts; of flowers that no longer know when to bloom and migrating birds that don’t know where to fly; and in the form of our own distraction and confusion – our minds unable to focus, our bodies unable to rest.

We will visit sites in the cemetery and garden resonant with some of the specific false promises of progress like mobility and prosperity while tracing the narrative of “faster, better, cheaper” more broadly. The tour will incorporate sensory elements to ground ourselves in embodied awareness and forestall becoming an observer at a distance.

The event is planned to be in English with German translation as needed but can be switched to German entirely, depending on participants. Register via email: dear.nature@pm.me.

Anna Rohleder ist eine Künstlerin mit Ausbildungen in der Gartentherapie und in der Heilkräuterkunde. Seit 2023 bietet sie naturgestützte Aktivitäten, Workshops und Kräuterwanderungen an. Ihre Webseite heißt darksideof.io. Sie lebt in Berlin.