Worlds within Worlds

20 February to 16 August 2026
Deutsche Börse Group, The Cube, Eschborn

The exhibition “Worlds within Worlds” is the second collaborative project between the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, the photography department at the University of Art and Design (HfG) Offenbach and the Master’s programme Curatorial Studies, run jointly by Goethe University and Städelschule Frankfurt. It brings together 14 artists whose works explore the in-between worlds of our respective realities. In their examination of political, historical and social themes, the boundaries of the medium of photography are probed, altered and expanded. Nelly Habelt’s video shows bodies floating in seemingly eternal stillness. In Lena Bils’ work, cotton-like clouds hang blurred over bodies of water, and Tatiana Vdovenko reveals a view of a destroyed landscape through a narrow gap.

The works reflect biographical experiences, subjective patterns of perception and personal interests. Individual starting points are interwoven with collective realities and overarching themes, depicting the everyday as well as supernatural, hopeful and catastrophic moments, that explore transitions, thresholds or boundaries. Contemporary microcosms are juxtaposed with spaces of memory – of East Germany, colonial continuities or migrant resilience. E. Elif Gönüllü processes her experience of gruelling bureaucratic hurdles into prayer beads, while Charlotte Burkhardt documents the nostalgic vacation resorts of a vanished state. Urban infrastructures and human order meet the vulnerability of nature and lay bare a fragile balance. Social tensions, past and present, are processed visually.

The artists featured in the exhibition are: Lena Bils, Charlotte Burkhardt, Simon Gilmer, E. Elif Gönüllü, Nelly Habelt, Philomena Hummel, Elinor Zoë Karl, Lea Kulens, Len David Oswald, Marie Schwarze, Markus Seibel, Madlen Strebel, Tatiana Vdovenko and Kerstin Weiser.

The exhibition was curated by Polina Arzhenovskova, Leonie Cecco, Franziska Dommers, Issata Drieling, Charlotte Häger, Antonia Janke, Egor Miroshnichenko, Alexandra Ruecker, Mattis Thomsen, Max Zimmermann and Carla Veit. The collaboration is supervised by Anne-Marie Beckmann, Director of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, Stefanie Heraeus, Head of the Curatorial Studies programme at Goethe University in Frankfurt and Martin Liebscher, Professor at the University of Art and Design in Offenbach.