HAPPY PLACE
Stretching across public spaces, cultural institutions, and artist-run venues, HAPPY PLACE brings together local and international artists who explore the complex interrelations between environment, mobility, leisure, and travel. Each exhibition site follows a distinct thematic focus, shedding light on specific facets of this broader subject.
At Kunstverein Freiburg, the monumental exhibition space evokes the sensory overload of a souvenir shop. This condensed setting invites reflection on the desires and mechanisms behind holidaymaking. In contrast, kulturaggregat—a cultural association with a focus on street art—turns its attention to the urban impact of the travel industry, addressing pressing issues such as housing scarcity and gentrification. Here, the growing influence of tourism on urban structures is re-staged and renegotiated by local inhabitants.
The works presented at DELPHI_space draw attention to the lasting aftereffects of colonialism. They reveal how colonial legacies persist across time and space, continuing to shape global travel culture. An installation at the Kaiserwache illustrates how traces of colonial history endure in culinary traditions, showing how food culture shapes national narratives and operates as a form of soft power.
In the cinema hall of the Museum für Neue Kunst, visitors gain insight into the transformation of a Nazi-era leisure resort into a luxury destination. Footage of stray dogs roaming the ruins of unfinished resorts on the Red Sea is juxtaposed with photographic sculptures at Schopf2. Here, melting sunsets merge with the tile patterns of the former workshop, disrupting the visual conventions of typical holiday imagery. Meanwhile, at Pförtnerhaus, art-historical motifs of idleness are re-examined through the lens of lesbian iconography.
Against the backdrop of these diverse perspectives, Freiburg itself emerges as a tourist destination where many of the Biennale’s themes can be locally traced. For example, three redesigned gondolas of the Schauinslandbahn cable car create a symbolic connection between the Black Forest and the Amazon. Their fiery motifs invite reflection on extractivism, colonial genealogies, and transregional ecologies. In a similar spirit, a poster project in the Wiehre district challenges romanticized representations of agriculture and highlights the visible traces of the climate crisis in the region. On the lawn near the Faulerbad, a temporary pavilion in the shape of a Mediterranean beach bar opens a symbolic portal between Freiburg and its partner city, Granada. Over the course of the Biennale, it will serve as the heart of the public and educational program.
Many of the works in HAPPY PLACE critically engage with the ideologies of leisure tourism, while at the same time proposing counter-models to dominant ways of thinking and acting. Within this framework, tourism becomes not only an object of critique, but a speculative site of possibility. Artistic positions respond by adopting distinctive forms of expression—employing humor, exaggeration, and satire to unsettle perspectives, rewrite dominant narratives, and imagine new futures. Within these constructed landscapes, moments of disruption and transgression emerge—alternative ways of narrating, moving through, and inhabiting space.
HAPPY PLACE
Stretching across public spaces, cultural institutions, and artist-run venues, HAPPY PLACE brings together local and international artists who explore the complex interrelations between environment, mobility, leisure, and travel. Each exhibition site follows a distinct thematic focus, shedding light on specific facets of this broader subject.
At Kunstverein Freiburg, the monumental exhibition space evokes the sensory overload of a souvenir shop. This condensed setting invites reflection on the desires and mechanisms behind holidaymaking. In contrast, kulturaggregat—a cultural association with a focus on street art—turns its attention to the urban impact of the travel industry, addressing pressing issues such as housing scarcity and gentrification. Here, the growing influence of tourism on urban structures is re-staged and renegotiated by local inhabitants.
The works presented at DELPHI_space draw attention to the lasting aftereffects of colonialism. They reveal how colonial legacies persist across time and space, continuing to shape global travel culture. An installation at the Kaiserwache illustrates how traces of colonial history endure in culinary traditions, showing how food culture shapes national narratives and operates as a form of soft power.
In the cinema hall of the Museum für Neue Kunst, visitors gain insight into the transformation of a Nazi-era leisure resort into a luxury destination. Footage of stray dogs roaming the ruins of unfinished resorts on the Red Sea is juxtaposed with photographic sculptures at Schopf2. Here, melting sunsets merge with the tile patterns of the former workshop, disrupting the visual conventions of typical holiday imagery. Meanwhile, at Pförtnerhaus, art-historical motifs of idleness are re-examined through the lens of lesbian iconography.
Against the backdrop of these diverse perspectives, Freiburg itself emerges as a tourist destination where many of the Biennale’s themes can be locally traced. For example, three redesigned gondolas of the Schauinslandbahn cable car create a symbolic connection between the Black Forest and the Amazon. Their fiery motifs invite reflection on extractivism, colonial genealogies, and transregional ecologies. In a similar spirit, a poster project in the Wiehre district challenges romanticized representations of agriculture and highlights the visible traces of the climate crisis in the region. On the lawn near the Faulerbad, a temporary pavilion in the shape of a Mediterranean beach bar opens a symbolic portal between Freiburg and its partner city, Granada. Over the course of the Biennale, it will serve as the heart of the public and educational program.
Many of the works in HAPPY PLACE critically engage with the ideologies of leisure tourism, while at the same time proposing counter-models to dominant ways of thinking and acting. Within this framework, tourism becomes not only an object of critique, but a speculative site of possibility. Artistic positions respond by adopting distinctive forms of expression—employing humor, exaggeration, and satire to unsettle perspectives, rewrite dominant narratives, and imagine new futures. Within these constructed landscapes, moments of disruption and transgression emerge—alternative ways of narrating, moving through, and inhabiting space.