Exhibition and publication project

Exhibitions

24th September - 9th November 2025
at Kommunale Galerie Berlin

Since March 6th 2026
intervention »Of Foxes and Trees« with Axel Jansa at
Schoeler Schlösschen, Berlin

About the project

On the corner of Prinzregentenstraße and Waghäuseler Straße lies a plot of land that has never been built on in Berlin’s history, where allotment gardens have been tended and cared for over the past 89 years. Despite numerous protests, the tenants were given notice to vacate their gardens by 30 November 2023, as the allotment land is to make way for a construction project by the state-owned property company Berlinovo. Committed local residents, activists and some of the allotment holders founded the ‘KlimaInsel Wilmersdorf’ initiative in early 2024 and, during two phases of temporary use, transformed the site into a community garden and neighbourhood meeting place where a wide range of activities took shape: events and discussions on climate protection and urban planning, plant swap meets, school workshops, harvest drives to benefit soup kitchens for the homeless, a history workshop, guided tours of the neighbouring site of the former Prinzregentenstraße synagogue, poster-painting campaigns, political advocacy work, petitions against the destruction of the allotment gardens, etc. I lent a camera to a resident of the garden, which he has used to document events on the ‘Climate Island’ from his kitchen window to this day. The aim of the initiative was to prevent development and to preserve the cooling garden for the public in the long term.

On 25 February 2026, the situation regarding the gardens changed abruptly.
Shortly before the end of the tree-felling season, all 48 trees on the Climate Island were felled, even though the planning application for a building comprising 280 furnished micro-flats had not yet been approved. In response, since 6 March I have been displaying all 48 destroyed trees on 4x5-inch contact prints in two display cases as part of an intervention at the neighbouring Schoeler Schlösschen, our current place of exile. I borrowed the exhibition title ‘Gardens of Resistance’ from the French philosopher and gardener Gilles Clément, who, with his idea of ‘Planetary Gardens’, advocates for a fairer distribution of food, greater education and participation.