I Feel the Earth Whisper

15. 6. — 3. 11. 2024

In a world rapidly changing in the face of climate change, the exhibition “I Feel the Earth Whisper” at Museum Frieder Burda invites visitors to engage more deeply with the fragile beauty of the natural world and our profound connectedness to it. Featuring installations by Bianca Bondi, Julian Charrière, Sam Falls and Ernesto Neto—encompassing sculpture, painting, video and photography—the exhibition, curated by Patricia Kamp and Jérôme Sans, encourages us to re-examine our ties to the planet's forests and singular ecosystems and to revive our historically rooted role as stewards of these vibrant habitats. Uniquely interlinked, the sometimes monumental works by these artists open our gaze outward to nature while simultaneously bringing the natural world indoors, creating spaces that make tangible the connections and interrelations with the “more-than-human” forces, cycles and processes of the natural and cosmic world. In a multilayered interweaving of mythology, cosmology and ecology, the exhibition invites visitors to experience anew, with all their senses, nature's polyphonic sounds.

On the occasion of its 20th anniversary, Museum Frieder Burda pays tribute, with the exhibition “I Feel the Earth Whisper”, to the visionary spirit and enduring legacy of its founder, Frieder Burda. Connected with the greatest thinkers and creators of his generation, the German collector built his museum on a human scale. Designed by Richard Meier and set within the picturesque park of the Lichtentaler Allee, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Baden-Baden, the museum—with its light-filled galleries—creates a harmonious symbiosis of art, architecture and a striking natural setting that invites visitors to linger and reflect. The interplay of light and nature within the museum's architecture blurs the boundaries between exterior and interior, creating a dynamic, immersive environment that challenges the traditional aesthetics of the white-cube museum. Located near the borders with France and Switzerland, the museum lies in the enigmatic Black Forest, a region rich in legend and spiritual resonance. Drawing on the museum's distinctive history and situation in Baden-Baden—a city shaped by healing and rejuvenation through its mineral-rich thermal springs and historic spa facilities—the exhibition explores the idea of healing on multiple levels: physical, psychological and ecological. In doing so, it addresses reciprocity—the mutual dependence and necessary care between humans and nature—and encourages a respectful, responsible relationship with the more-than-human world.