In the museum’s hall, which spans over 300 square meters, works by international and local artists will be on display together for the first time. The themes of the exhibited works span the broad spectrum of Lusatia’s transformation. These include textile art, environmental issues, and the loss and gain of landscape and identity.
The exhibition explores the multifaceted processes of transformation in Lusatia and addresses themes such as textiles, landscape, the environment, memory, identity, and social change. Diverse artistic perspectives offer new insights into a region in the midst of upheaval.

As soon as you enter the hall, the ten-meter-long installation Flaming Heart by Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos catches your eye. Opposite it stretches Sonja Yakoleva’s monumental paper cutout State of Strike, which covers the entire back wall of the room.

On the front wall, fashion designer and artist Esther Perbandt complements this powerful tension with her performance and video installation ORDER/DISORDER. The other works also address the transformation of Lusatia. Frank Lippold presents large-format woodcuts, while Marike Schuurmann uses highly enlarged Polaroid photographs—executed as pigment prints in Plexiglas boxes—to explore the artificially created lake landscapes and their water and acid content. Minh Duc Pham uses the flags of his Rosenbrigade to recall the history of Vietnamese contract workers in the GDR.

Heike Zappe documents the historic Jende trimmings factory in Forst through photography, drawing attention to a craft that continues to this day. With her participatory knitting machine installation, Karen Modrei invites visitors to contribute personal memories and stories, which are immediately translated into textile patterns.

The exhibition concludes with a large-scale installation of a macro-scale coal structure by Vienna-based artist Katharina Wimmer. It references the history of lignite mining in Lusatia and makes its traces visible, just as it highlights the region’s ongoing transformation.