Make Peace with Nature – Healing the world with art, poetry and music

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Intercultural exhibition at Kult41 + participatory art project in collaboration with Bonnections, Rhein-Indus Global Forum and Artists for Future Bonn/Rhein-Sieg

“Making peace with nature is the defining task of the 21st century.”  — UN SECRETARY-GENERAL ANTÓNIO GUTERRES

Make Peace with Nature is an interdisciplinary art project that aims to connect the cultural landscapes of the Rhine and the Indus rivers and to stimulate an intercultural exchange between Orient and Occident about the triple planetary crisis of our times: climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution.

The art exhibition focuses on works by the Persian artist Mahmoud Mirzaie, who lives in Brühl, and the Bonn artist and art educator Anna Thinius.


Ariadne Collage by Anna Thinius

Exhibits include calligraphy art, paintings and artworks that Mahmoud created from natural “waste” materials , such as human hair and onion skins, as well as Plastic Recycle Textile Art by Anna.

The courtyard and the bus outside will also feature Climate Poetry from the  “And they left us Broken Planet” poetry series and photos from the  Clean River Project  outdoor exhibit. The poems were created by a Dutch climate scientist and published by him via Twitter & Instagram last year in the run-up to the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow (100 poems in 100 days).

The collective exhibition is integrated into the annual Bonn Peace Days, European Sustainable Development Week and the Bonn SDG Days (Sept. 17 – Oct. 11), around the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations, and includes an interactive accompanying program with workshops on making nature + plastic Art, poetry writing and painting Parachutes for the Planet.

Vernissage with Live Music by German folk musician Tom Kannmacher + Performance Art: Sept. 22 | 7 PM

Garbage monster workshop with Anna Thinius: Oct. 2nd l 3 PM

Finissage with a creative family-friendly program: Oct. 16 l 2 PM // Kult41, Hochstadenring 41, 53119 Bonn, Germany

Says Sandra Prüfer, project coordinator and co-founder of the Bonnections Initiative: “We are a group of artists, scientists and media professionals of different ages and backgrounds. What unites us are our concerns for Mother Earth and the future of our children. We are convinced that it will take a profound cultural change and a creative cross-border collaboration to turn the tide in the decade that we have left to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees.”

Only if we change our consumption levels and end the over-exploitation of natural resources, we can achieve the climate targets, halt the loss of biodiversity and the pollution of the planet. If everyone in the world consumed as much as the people in Germany, we would need three planets Earth.

Climate Artiviism in front of the UN Climate Secretariat in Bonn: Painted Parachutes for the Planet, climate justice, and a just fossil-fuel free future

“To tackle the crises of our times and the transition from the fossil to the renewable energy age, we have to change the narrative, towards solutions and possibilities, find new ways of communication that engage people emotionally, inspire and bring people into a conversation. This requires, more than ever, art and culture,” says Prüfer.

Following the UN Stockholm+50 environmental conference in early June, the participatory art project aims to shed light on how we as individuals and communities can collectively confront the three interrelated planetary crises – climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution. How can we personally make our peace with nature and create a “Climate of Togetherness” in the face of these multiple crises?

Creative Workshop Series

During the exhibit people can also participate in different workshops, including Calligraphy, Nature & Plastic Art Making, and Haiku Poetry Writing.

Anna Thinius would like to address the topic of Plastic Pollution in her workshop on October 2, inviting young and old to create imaginary and real Trash Monsters and introduce her Trash Monster book project.

Onion skin head by Mahmoud Mirzaie

In addition to a calligraphy Mahmoud Mirzaie likes to co-create with participants (target group: children & parents) art from organic and waste materials in a second workshop. Pakistani History Professor and Sufi Scholar Aslam Syed from the Rhine-Indus Global Forum will also give an introduction to Sufi Poetry (in English).

The Climate Haiku Poetry & Watercolor Workshop on October 16, led by Sandra Prüfer (Bonnections), is inspired by the last poem in the Broken Planet series, “Healing the world with poetry,” and the climate haikus by two IPCC climate scientists,  Andy Reisinger (New Zealand) und Gregory Johnson (USA).

The works created in the workshops will be presented at the finissage.

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