GfZK Exhibition Text: Things That Were Are Things Again is an attempt to realise a climate-neutral exhibition. Together with artists and designers we test sustainable strategies to reduce energy consumption and enable recycling processes. The works on display bear witness to a careful use of resources and focus on social interaction and a regard for diverse living beings. Expanding the contents of the collection, we have invited artists whose works highlight the technological, political, economic and cultural dimensions of climate change.
Things That Were Are Things Again stands for a commitment to transformation processes. The title is borrowed from a work by Dan Peterman, an important representative of sustainable artistic practice. In the context of the history of GfZK it points to the question of how art can contribute to respectful coexistence.

Elizabeth Gerdeman’s themes are natural phenomena and landscapes. She creates collages from abstract landscape elements with sections of sky and scenic spaces, putting the sheets together to form a speculative situation. She paints on found paper in Cascade and Constellation. Connections between the reference points in the collage are made by the viewers, which can lead to different future scenarios. Gerdeman often presents her works hanging freely or outdoors, so that they change with the movement of the air and the climate of the space. The works were created in response to Rebecca Solnit's “Dare we hope?” case for climate optimism in the Guardian (2021).