“The city has always been a shared habitat in which humans and animals have coexisted. Cities do not only offer attractive conditions for people; animals, too, continually claim new urban habitats for themselves. With the thematic exhibition “urbs animalis – The City as a Habitat for Animals and Humans”, the Walkmühle Artists’ Association seeks not only to draw attention to the ambivalent position of animals in urban spaces, but also to explore the diverse interactions and interspecies relationships that arise from encounters between animals and humans.
Our image of the animal as something entirely different from ourselves is no longer tenable. Animals are not only far more intelligent than we once believed, but also more inventive, more empathetic, and even more versed in matters of aesthetics than previously assumed. They are so similar to us that the traditional distinctions and hierarchies have become questionable. The fact that we, as humans, also belong to this group—namely, the mammals—has led many animal rights advocates to prefer distinguishing between human and non-human animals rather than continuing to uphold the human–animal dualism. It appears that this shift in thinking is not merely the logical consequence of scientific discoveries in the field of contemporary animal research, but is instead nourished by many different sources.
Artists have always possessed the keenest sensitivity for perceiving such fundamental changes. They sense cracks in the foundations of social conventions long before they become visible and investigate them through their own artistic means.
The thematic group exhibition brings together twenty-four international contemporary artistic positions, featuring works from a wide range of artistic disciplines, including painting, photography, and sculpture, as well as performance, installation, and digital media. Selected by curators Christiane Erdmann and Verena Schmidt through both targeted curatorial research and an international open call, the exhibition presents a balanced combination of established artists and emerging talents.
The exhibition examines the common roles and expectations attributed to animals. The status of our animal counterparts fluctuates between friend and foe, useful creature and pest, but they also appear as anecdotal figures, sources of entertainment, objects of consumption, or figures of identification.”
– Künstlerverein Walkmühle
artists
Diana Bagnioli // Fritz Bornstück // Frank Brechter // Magriet van Breefort // Catherine Chalmers // Marcus Coates // Tanja Fender // Zohar Fraiman // Myriam Gross Mall // Frauke Hänke & Claus Kienle // Elke Härtel // Ink // Sajana Joshi // Kroot Juurak & Alex Bailey // Felix Kiessling // Hartmut Kiewert // Michelle Lloyd // Charlotte Lybeer // Kerstin Mytijasevic // Robert Roest // Corinna Schnitt // Violetta Vollrath // Marcel Walldorf // Eiji Watanabe
Venue
Künstlerverein Walkmühle e.V.
Walkmühle 3
65195 Wiesbaden
Deutschland
Exhibition duration
20. August — 15. November 2026
Opening
Donnerstag, 20. August 2026, 19 Uhr
(Ich werde zur Eröffnung vor Ort sein)
Opening hours
Tue + Thu: 10am – 3pm
Wed + Fri: 5 – 8pm
Sat: 2 – 7pm
Sun + holidays: 11am – 7pm