Cooling Technology [German: Kaeltetechnik] Silicone (PVC) curtain, stickers, 2013/2019. Ute Richter

Ute Richter poses the question of whether so-called cooling technology, symbolically transferred from industrial production onto social relations, is a way of maintaining the status quo in an increasing colder, alienated society of production and overproduction or, to the contrary – a way for us to delimit ourselves, to protect ourselves from becoming absorbed into these processes.

Quoting the German poetess and writer Elke Erb, who says: "I have no need of hope", the artist casts doubt on the positive meaning of the concept of "hope" and "hoping", which for her is more of an internal brake, a convenient excuse for inaction and postponing urgent action for change.