Diese Seite ist nur auf Englisch verfügbar.

Art at the End of Time(s) - Migration and Displacement

July 4 & 5, 2026 | Tankturm, Heidelberg

This art and photography exhibition at the Tankturm explores the border as a space and time of apocalypse, serving as a site where contemporary colonial-capitalist modernity is created through the displacement of language, territory, and identity. Featuring the creative practices of 2026 CAPAS fellows Federico Cuatlacuatl and Luis Hernan, the exhibition disrupts the colonial logics that constrain our imagination of alternative futures by focusing on (moving) images of apocalyptic experiences. From the forced self-displacement of individuals to the destruction of ecosystems justified by utopian promises, the works delve into the affective level of the apocalypse and the creation of "non-places" that act as gateways to other worlds. By standing at the borderlands, this immersive event invites visitors to look at the future differently, transforming socially relevant research into an emotionally accessible dialogue between the artistic and academic worlds.

The event is an art and photography exhibition at the Tankturm (water tower) exploring the border as a space, and a time, of apocalypse. The end of worlds is a rhetorical device. It signifies beginnings and ends, the encounter of a radical other and the place where multiple worlds have ended, multiple times. It is also the site where contemporary colonial-capitalist modernity is created, by articulating the processes by which language, territory and identity are displaced and erased. As the Chicanx theorist, poet and artist Gloria Anzaldúa phrased it, borders are where ‘the Third World grates against the first and bleeds. And before a scab forms it hemorrhages again’.

The exhibition brings together the creative practice of two of the 2026 fellows of the Käte Hamburger Centre for Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Studies whose projects aim to stand and disrupt the border, detecting the colonial logic that shape present times and constrain the imagination of alternative futures. The focus is on the depiction of apocalyptic experiences and spaces in (moving) images. On the one hand, it concerns the forced self-displacements of individuals and groups due to compelling or rapidly changing circumstances that make it impossible to remain in a particular space. On the other hand, it concerns spaces that have been created or altered by the displacement of others and are simultaneously non-places in the sense that they serve merely as gateways to other places (or worlds). The apocalypse manifests itself on an affective level in relation to individuals and groups who are forced to leave places. It also refers to the destruction of ecosystems with the utopian promise of a better future.

The works featured in this exhibition will reflect multidisciplinary approaches by the artists, engaging with drawing, photography, and other forms of production. The exhibition will be accompanied by talks by the artists and academics. Federico Cuatlacuatl’s practice artistically and emotionally amplifies ancestral knowledge from Nahua cosmologies that has been preserved despite adverse circumstances in Central Mexico. The work explores resistance under repressive conditions, aiming to create alternative realities, other worlds and a future through non-Western conceptions of space and time. In this context, ‘End Times’ embodies the prospect of a new beginning under self-determined conditions.

Luis Hernan exhibits visual work produced as part of Borderland Utopias, a project that explores the colonial underpinning of the spaceport in Boca Chica, Texas, the small community at the end of the border between Mexico and the United States where, as SpaceX tells us, the ‘future of humanity is unfolding in plain view for the public.’ Utopian narratives promising to improve life through technology go hand in hand with a violent destruction of the status quo. In relation to Boca Chica, the creation of life from a mythological perspective clashes with the destruction of the very same place. Architectural sites thus constitute places where time becomes visible; they are places where past conceptions of the present and future are preserved; they are both the end of an era and a new beginning.

‘The Third World grates against the first and bleeds. And before a scab forms it hemorrhages again’.

The curation is a collaborative effort aimed at putting two creative practices in conversation. Joining the practices of Federico and Luis is an interest in understanding the way that borders become places of centering resistance, suspended moments where a capitalist, colonial direction of time is suspended and, out of this pause, comes a chance to delve and excavate alternative cosmologies and ways of inhabiting the future. The exhibition is designed to take place on two levels, inviting visitors to experience different perspectives on the apocalypse through sound and sight. On the one hand, there is the destruction inherent in the concept of the apocalypse; on the other, there is the potential for creation, which can be understood as a secondary meaning of
‘revelation’, a term that the apocalypse also embodies. The Tankturm provides the backdrop for an immersive experience, made possible by the sounds of the short film reverberating through the space and the visual impressions.

The visual material is an invitation to look at the future differently by standing at the borderlands. They represent a practice of standing at the borderlands, bringing the logics of extraction and violence to bear in the imaginaries of occupying other planets and the narratives of end of times used to justify the destruction of its landscape.

The Artists

Federico Cuatlacuatl

Artist and Associate Professor in the Department of Art at the University of Virginia. Cuatlacuatl’s aesthetic oeuvre addresses Nahua Indigenous immigration, social art practice, and cultural sustainability. Building on his own experience as an undocumented immigrant and DACA holder, his creative practice collides Indigeneity and immigration. At the core of his most recent research and artistic production is the intersection of transborder Indigeneity, migrant Indigenous diasporas, and Nahua futurisms. His work has been featured in international film festivals and exhibitions globally.

Cuatlacuatl is a co-founder of the UNDOC+Collective and the founder of the Rasquache Artist Residency in Puebla, México. Federico Cuatlacuatl visually delineates migration and displacement while smuggling acts of self-preservation, rematriation, and resistance. He smuggles indigenous Mexican traditions and culture to the United States, reclaiming his ancestral Nahua lineage, land, and language. As a DACAmented member of the Nahua community, Cuatlacuatl’s work is shaped by the colonial marginalization and disenfranchisement faced by indigenous communities in México while being deeply rooted in challenging socio-political and economic relations between México and the United States

Luis Hernan

Luis Hernan is a Lecturer in Spatial Narratives. His research, which has moved from the digital to the speculative humanities, is inspired by Latin-American literary traditions and explores the interface between stories, narrative and architecture as central to the way that we inhabit and make sense of architecture and urban space. He is particularly interested in the political, social and spatial aspects of the future, examining the continuities of Empire and colonialism in ideals of progress, modernity and utopia.

His work in the last few years has focused on the architectures and infrastructures in the borderlands between Mexico and the United States, inspired by utopia and the end of worlds. Luis’ research is transdisciplinary, combining critical theory with creative practice and practices as a photographer, poet and fiction writer in parallel to his critical scholarship. He is involved in a wide range of feminist and decolonial initiatives.

The Tankturm (Water Tower)

Opened in 1927, the water tower and the maintance depot (Betriebswerk) were a multi-million-mark project undertaken by Heidelberg to advance technology. The steam locomotive, a symbol of the Anthropocene and a turning point in human history, was refuelled with water and maintained here. By 2026, there is no longer any sign of steam locomotives; only the water tower still stands in its old place, next to the railway tracks, yet it serves a new purpose. As an event venue, it connects the past with the present; from a transit point for machines, it has become a meeting place for people. Symbolically, the water tower no longer stands for progress, as it did in 1927, but for a bygone era. At the same time, something new has emerged from the ruins: the end has become a new beginning. Thus, the site, perhaps more than any other in Heidelberg, is a symbol of the apocalypse as we understand it at CAPAS: the apocalypse not as the end of the world, but as the end of a world.