Zwischen Erfinden und Erfassen

In Duisburg's inner harbour, traces of urban development since the Middle Ages, remnants of the Ruhr region's industrial history, postmodern architecture and local recreation form a collaged landscape. Today, the little brother of Duisburg's large inland harbour is barely recognisable as Europe's former largest grain transhipment point. In the 1990s, the harbour canal was transformed as part of the International Building Exhibition Emscherpark and reinvented as a residential and leisure area according to the Masterplan by architect Sir Norman Foster. With the City Archive, the Centre for the Culture of Remembrance, the NRW State Archive and the Garden of Memories by artist Dani Karavan, there is a high density of institutions dedicated to overarching historical contexts on site. 

The exhibition Zwischen Erfinden und Erfassen. Suchbewegungen im Duisburger Innenhafen with mostly newly created sculptural, performative and multimedia works by international artists takes a contemporary look at the inner harbour and explores processes of invention, superimposition and failure. From Duisburg, it establishes global connections and undertakes search movements into the future.