Nimmersatt? Gesellschaft ohne Wachstum denken

, 2021

The book expands the scope of the exhibition Nimmersatt? Imagining Society without Growth by exploring selected questions more deeply and theoretically, as well as inviting us to ponder these crucial issues further.

The promise of happiness cannot be redeemed through prosperity and the constant growth of capi-tal alone. It is necessary to rethink what has obtained up to now and for us to act in the sense of a community. What can take the place of previous economic and social models? How can the renunciation of our way of life become a sustainable routine? Can we imagine new goals of living together, to change our habits individually and collectively and act? By means of artistic approaches, visions and commentaries, our hyper-capitalized present, with its permanent striving for more, also becomes the book's point of departure when proposing new forms of action in a post-growth society. The book is published by DISTANZ Verlag and elaborates the thoughts and reflections of the exhibition in the scope of its 208 pages. The introductory text by the exhibition's three curators—Merle Radtke, Kristina Scepanski and Marianne Wagner—is followed by literary contributions by Martina Hefter and Lisa Krusche, as well as several essays. In their essay Farewell to Nimmersatt and the Growth Society, Irmi Seidl and Angelika Zahrnt discuss the necessity of freeing ourselves from our dependence upon economic growth and the need to rebalance the importance of paid and unpaid work. In his essay, Tim Rieniets investigates the "urban intelligence" of the city and posits the idea that urban life could actually be more economical and innovative than life in rural regions. The author and activist Priya Basil has written a play in five acts titled Life Vest, which dramatizes the encounter of a never-sated European society and its political representatives with people who have made the perilous journey across the Mediterranean to flee dire existential hardship. The texts are complemented by photo spreads of works by artists Agnes Denes, Marwa Arsanios and Raul Walch – the latter two of whom also feature in the exhibition. As does the exhibition, the book opens up a conceptual space, using the inherent qualities of art and literature, among other things, to take an alternative look at current social issues and to depart from established modes of knowledge production.

With contributions from Marwa Arsanios, Priya Basil, Agnes Denes, Martina Hefter, Fran Ilich, Lisa Krusche, Felix Maschewski and Anna-Verena Nosthoff, Merle Radtke, Kristina Scepanski and Marianne Wagner, Tim Rieniets, Irmi Seidl and Angelika Zahrnt, Jonas Staal, Raul Walch.