The Limits to Growth
Hermann Bigelmayr
In 2010the southern German sculptor Hermann Bigelmayr accepted the invitation to develop an artistic work for the Wintringer Chapel Cultural Site on the Wintringer farm. For some time now, the main inspiration for sculptor Hermann Bigelmayr's artistic work has been the "Club of Rome" reports on the state of humanity, which have been published since 1969 and repeatedly updated over a period of 30 years. They are subtitled "Die Grenzen des Wachstums/The Limits to Growth".
Lead authors include scholars Donella (2001) and Dennis Meadows. Founded in 1968, the "Club of Rome" embodies a non-commercial organization of about 51 selected experts from the fields of economics, science, politics and public life. They operate on an interdisciplinary and supra-political basis with the aim of raising awareness of key global issues and their interrelationships in order to raise awareness of the global threats they pose to humanity, particularly among political decision-makers. The authors of the reports, which have been translated into 37 languages worldwide and sold millions of copies, tirelessly show that the stress limits of this planet, wherever they may lie, are being reached very quickly by exponential growth, and in some cases have already been exceeded!
When the limits of growth are reached or even exceeded, the Earth's systems, which are essential for survival, are in danger of becoming unbalanced and collapsing.
The exhibition "Limits to Growth" is accompanied at the cultural site Wintringer Chapel by a topic-specific supporting program "Discourse Sustainability". Model regions in particular, e.g. biosphere reserves, have the opportunity in a worldwide network, but also the responsibility, with their individual resources, to develop possible solutions in creative processes and to feed them into the world context.
Against this background, the sculptural work of Hermann Bigelmayr was created specifically for the site and its responsibility as one of the "model workshops" in the Bliesgau Biosphere Reserve. It is completed over a period of two years in the mirror of a topic-specific public discourse. At the end a summarizing publication is planned.
The cultural site Wintringer Chapel will thus for the first time respond artistically to the question of how to sustainably preserve living spaces and use the impulses to ask questions and think about solutions.