Christina Kubisch: The Conference of Trees

The Conference of Trees by Christina Kubisch

Canadian Premiere
Presented by the Goethe-Institut Toronto

September 9 – October 23, 2026
Goethe Space, Toronto
Free

Five bonsai on a table, trunks wrapped with spiralling cables, transmitting sound via inductive loop and custom-made electromagnetic headphones. Walking around the table, visitors mix the five channels themselves—hearing whisper, rustle, song, and murmur, all processed from field recordings of nature.

Berlin media artist Kubisch conceived the work in 1988 during a residency in the artist village of Worpswede, Germany, where military manoeuvres were causing environmental damage and noise pollution.

“[The late 80s were ] a period of major NATO training exercises. Every day, supersonic aircrafts passed, with frightening noise, above us. It destroyed forests and fields, left oil and other dangerous materials in the farming grounds. The Conference of Trees was created as a small counter-proposal to the huge fighting machine and the many conferences which did not care about or for nature.” – Christina Kubisch

First presented at “ars viva” at Kampnagelfabrik Hamburg 1989, the sound installation went on to Seoul, Venice, and beyond.

As a companion piece, images from Kubisch’s 2001 UV photo series Schutzraum (Shelter), exhibited only once before, frame the installation in the Goethe Space. Deep in northern Germany’s disused Hasestollen tunnel—a WWII air-raid shelter once painted with phosphorescent paint so residents could see in the dark—Kubisch trained hidden UV tubes on the walls, reawakening a decades-old glow alongside fluorescing moss, lichen and mineral residue. Like The Conference of Trees, it turns a site’s layered history into something to listen or look your way into slowly—proof that for Kubisch, art is never fixed, only ever “constant within change.”

Christina Kubisch, born 1948, belongs to the first generation of sound artists working across performance, video, visual art, sound installation and electro-acoustic composition. She built her practice by transforming technologies—ultraviolet light, solar energy, electromagnetic induction—merging audio and visual arts into multi-sensory experiences where participants become active listeners and performers.

Kubisch has taught in Berlin, Paris, Saarbrücken, and Oxford, received the ZKM Giga Hertz Award in 2021 for her life’s work, and is a member of Academy of the Arts Berlin. She lives and works in Berlin. In 2026, Ludwig Forum Aachen is hosting a survey show of five decades of her work.

Free illuminating programming at the Goethe-Institut:

Call & Response: “Under a Common Sky” – Faisal Anwar on digital art & climate care
September 22, 2026, 6–7pm
Free | Register here

Immersive media artist Anwar introduces his international work in the context of Kubisch’s ideas of listening to nature.

Anwar is a hybrid artist and interactive producer blending data, AI, and scientific research into participatory, emotionally resonant experiences that address climate change, sustainability, and cultural identity. Anwar, a graduate of the Canadian Film Centre and the National College of Arts Lahore, Pakistan, was Chief Curator of the Karachi Biennale 2022.

“Mobile Life“ Workshop with Hitoko Okada
Free | Sold Out! | Limited space, 16+ (first come, first served)

Interdisciplinary artist Hitoko Okada invites participants to explore the bonsai as a living, shifting presence—and to consider what it might mean to listen to nature, to one another, and to perspectives beyond our own.

Curated by Jutta Brendemühl. Accompanied by a digital reading room, an online interview with the artist & by a Radiance VR “Climate Culture” selection of XR works on demand.

Call & Response <> is the Goethe-Institut Toronto’s cross-disciplinary series exploring core programming questions in dialogue with international and local artists.

Part of the 2026 program (re)Open Minds: Adapting to the Future

Follow, tag & talk to the Goethe-Institut on Instagram @goetheinstitut_toronto #GoetheTO #reOpenMinds.

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