Reaching out the future : Fantasies of the future around 1900

19/07/2019 > 27/10/2019

Lunar expeditions, colonization of other planets, underwater worlds and fully automated cities: on the threshold to the twentieth century, the world appeared to be full of promise. The modern machine age had begun and promised seemingly endless possibilities. Fascinated by new technology and inspired by literary visions of the future, artists and caricaturists created images of the future rich in fantasy. Their motifs found wide distribution as illustrations in books or journals or in the form of collectible cards or postcards. Early film also looked toward the future with particular intensity and wide variety.

“Reaching Out for the Future” also kicks off a major outreach project at Bröhan-Museum that seeks to explore individual and collective, social models of the future. In the framework of a summer tour, our Mobile Future Lab will make stops in various Berlin neighborhoods. Visions and wishes for the city that take form here will be included in a growing portrait of the future at the exhibition. Artistic interventions, workshops, and events question fact and fiction and open ideas for a new world.

Mobile Future Lab
The Mobile Future Lab will be on summer tour and invites the public to join in and discover for themselves. Come join us in silk-screening sustainably produced jute bags to share your visions, wishes, and ideas for a future world.

Curator: Nils Martin Müller
Exhibition design: Katleen Arthen, Colya Zucker
Advertising motif: Gerwin Schmidt, Munich