Planetarische Bauern

Ilona Németh (born 1963 in today’s Slovakia, lives in Bratislava) witnessed firsthand the collapse of the sugar industry after the fall of communism in her hometown of Dunajská Streda, where one of the most advanced sugar factories of the country was demolished in 2006. Her research into the history of sugar production, from the early nineteenth century to the height of globalization, was brought together in her project Eastern Sugar, which is shown in an interactive archive installation. As if under a magnifying glass, it reveals the profound upheavals and crises that have reshaped Eastern and Central Europe. The installation Crystallization Point builds on this project, using historical imagery, contemporary interviews and artistic works to draw connections between the fate of sugar factories around Halle and other radical transformations in (Eastern) European industrial societies in the wake of globalization. “We are witnessing the transformation of the established world order,” Németh declares, “a kind of crystallization process, the next phase of which remains hidden.”