On Paradise
Group Exhibition
Villa Schöningen, Potsdam, Germany
May 31, 2026 - August 23, 2026
Curated by Dr. Anne Daffertshofer and Pola van den Hövel
On Paradise explores one of the most enduring concepts in cultural history, considering how ideas of paradise have shaped understandings of nature, the body, social order and colonial expansion. The exhibition brings historical and contemporary artistic positions into dialogue, examining paradise not as a real or lost place, but as a projection shaped by desire, longing, ideals and forms of control.
Presented throughout the interior spaces and garden of Villa Schöningen, the exhibition traces the ways in which images of paradise have influenced the shaping of landscapes, bodies and social structures. Idyllic visions of nature are placed alongside the ecological, political and colonial realities upon which they have often depended, while contemporary works reconsider paradise as a site of negotiation rather than harmony.
Annalee Davis presents A Recuperative Gesture (2025), a wall-based herbarium created from pressed plants gathered along Martinique’s north-west coast in 2025. The work considers plants as agents of ecological resistance, drawing attention to the relationships between land, colonial histories, memory and survival. Installed across a deep blue field, the gathered specimens form a constellation of botanical material that foregrounds the agency and persistence of the living world.
Curated by Dr. Anne Daffertshofer and Pola van den Hövel, with curatorial assistance by Luis Bortt, On Paradise brings together works spanning different periods and perspectives to consider how the idea of paradise continues to shape contemporary realities.
With works by: Immanuel Birkert, Lisa Brice, Jan Brueghel II, CATPC, Annalee Davis, Philip Hudgson Dorrel, Constant Dullaart, Albrecht Dürer, Esther Forse, Camila Ospina Gaitán, Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg, Fee-Gloria Grönemeyer, Martin Groß, Sonja Halbfass, Trulee Hall, Barbara Hammer, Dorothy Iannone, Christin Kaiser, Eva-Fiore Kovacovsky, Sarah Lehnerer, Mischa Leinkauf & Ed Davenport, Marzia Migliora, Siobhan McLaughlin, Lisa Seebach, Kiki Smith, Oana Stanciu, Friedrich Thieme and a Vinča terracotta figure of a woman.
Text adapted from Villa Schöningen.
Annalee Davis, A Recuperative Gesture, 2025, Herbarium. © Villa Schöningen, Photo: Sascha Herrmann, 2026.
