The Current

The current exacerbation of social, ecological and political lines of conflict in the United States reveal conflicts that have been concentrating around the Mississippi for some time. As tensions rise around racialized violence, ecological destruction and the Covid-19 pandemic, the historical path dependencies and social-political structures that made them become ever more apparent.

The installation The Current presents field studies by artists, scholars and activists who were involved in the HKW project Mississippi. An Anthropocene River and which sought site-specific approaches to planetary crises along the Mississippi River Basin; a river system that exemplifies current transformations of intertwining histories of earth and settlement, of the bio- and technosphere. The Current presents interdisciplinary research, methodological experiments and works of art that explore the ecological, political, social and technospheric interconnections of the Mississippi River. In the face of the deepening of old and new social divisions, the installation brings together projects that explore new perspectives and spheres of engagement based on solidarity and collaboration for a polyphonic practice of working, living, and surviving in the Anthropocene.

Due to the new COVID-19 regulations the contents of the installation are available online only at shape.anthropocene-curriculum.org.

With contributions by Kayla Anderson, Sara Black, Jeremy Bolen, Isabelle Carbonell, Andrea Carlson, Jennifer Colten, Tia-Simone Gardner, Beate Geissler, Amber Ginsburg, Ryan Griffis, Monica Moses Haller, Derek Hoeferlin, Brian Holmes, Sarah Kanouse , John Kim, Brian Krikbride, Sarah Lewison, LocalStyle (Marlena Novak and Jay Alan Yim), Saundi McClain-Kloeckener, Margarida Mendes, Abbéy Odunlami, Lynn Peemoeller, Claire Pentecost , Oliver Sann, Jenny Schmid, Michael Swierz, Joe Underhill, Monique Verdin, Anna Van Voorhis, Maureen Walrath, Joslyn Willauer, Andrew S. Yang