Human Work – New Art from Münster

Yedam Ann, Zauri Matikashvili, Jakob Schnetz and Rebecca Ramershoven, Jan Niklas Thape

The artists featured in this exhibition explore what it means to be human in an age shaped by humanity and technology. They address experiences of time and space, repression and memory, privileges and disadvantages based on skin color and gender, dealing with illness, and old and new kinds of work through photography, video, and installations. They examine tensions between visibility and invisibility, production and exhaustion, belonging and alienation, revealing that our existence is defined by work, and that this work is not an end in itself. It is accompanied by hierarchies and relationships: Who works for whom or for what? Do computers work for us? Does our body work against us? Is the corporation our new family?

Yedam Ann focuses on how people experience mobility within architectural structures and urban environments, examining power relations and questions of belonging. Her interest lies in the changing significance of geographic location due to global telecommunications and transportation technologies: the expansion of spaces we can inhabit has transformed our sense of place; physical distance and geographic location extend into the digital world. At KIT, she has created scenarios that represent these non-places with hotel.hotel.net and Different Floors.

Zauri Matikashvili uses as little technology as possible in his film works, taking on many tasks himself to get as close as possible to the people he films. At the same time, he questions his role as performer and director. While observing, witnessing, and shaping through media, he deliberately intervenes to create emphasis and develops dramaturgical models to expand the boundaries of the medium. At KIT, he presents two video installations that deal with personal experiences: You May Not Want to Be Here (2024–25) and Made in Europe (2023).

Kaskaden is a collaborative work by Jakob Schnetz and Rebecca Ramershoven. The piece focuses on the intersection of technology and aesthetic conventions in photographic production. The images Speicherlandschaft I and II by Jakob Schnetz are screenshots of glitches in the display of photographic images in image editing software. The data being viewed was misinterpreted due to an error deliberately caused by the artist, disrupting the intended representation. Schnetz elevates these fleeting images to the status of new works in their own right.

Are documentaries objective? Are they truthful? Even the decision of where a photographer or filmmaker places their camera and which lighting or lens they choose is subjective and thus shapes their version of reality. For years, Jan Niklas Thape has investigated what he—and we—see and accept as so-called reality. In Untitled (2025), he addresses the discomfort surrounding German memorial culture within the charged atmosphere of the current antisemitism debate. Taking another step back, behind the cameras of others, Thape presents his installation Speakers Corner (2025).

Curators: Gertrud Peters and Johannes Raimann

The exhibition was initiated and supported by