HOPE Exhibition at Museion Bolzano Explores Space Junk and Afrofuturism

Museion Bolzano presents HOPE, the final installment of the 'Techno Humanities' trilogy curated by director Bart van der Heide. The exhibition reimagines the museum as a hub for envisioning the present and future. The fourth floor, dubbed 'Observatory,' features works like Sonia Leimer's 'Space Junk' installation addressing space debris, Nicola L.'s wearable 'Sun & Moon Giant Pénétrables' silhouettes, and LuYang's five-channel video 'Electromagnetic Brainology.' Michael Fliri presents a radiograph-like reproduction of his body in glass. The second floor is dedicated to Afrofuturism, honoring Drexciya—a mythical underwater civilization born from enslaved pregnant women thrown overboard during the Atlantic slave trade—which inspired Detroit techno. Works by Abu Qadim Haqq and co-curator De Forrest Brown Jr. explore this theme. The elevator installation 'AUI OI' by Ulrike Bernard and Caroline Profanter, originally created for the Ritten cable car and winner of a 2013 competition by Museion, Festival Transart, and Südtiroler Künstlerbund, transports visitors into a potential future. The exhibition also features Black Quantum Futurism, a Philadelphia collective re-coding colonial symbols. Maggie Lee's 'Hearts Mission' transfigures New York into a state of grace. All works exhibit a cynical optimism in depicting the interpenetration of real and virtual, where interlocutors dialogue absently about climate change and pollution.