by Louis from Indonesia

On Christmas 2021, Adelia, Georges, Espérance and I were very happy to receive a Christmas gift from Frauke, Carolin and Dirk. It was a trip to Oberhausen, which included visiting the exhibition “Das zerbrechliche Paradies”. The exhibition is in Gasometer, Oberhausen. The Gasometer building is a former industrial building which has now been converted into an exhibition venue.

It is a temporary exhibition, it started from the summer last year until December 2022. The exhibition shows the beauty of nature and the influence of man/human on the environment by the photographs and videos. On the first level, there are a lot of beautiful pictures. It shows the perfect side of the earth, from the nature, flora and fauna. There are some pictures from the natural catastrophe, but only a few. In this area, I had a really big motivation to explore the world because this earth is so great. I was so motivated until I continue my way to the second level…

On the second level, the exhibition illustrates the massive human interference with nature and the effects: the using of fossil fuels, clearing of the tropical rainforest, exploitation of animals, environmental pollution, climate change and extreme weather phenomena. On this part I have read that 8 billion people are now crowded together on our planet: all of them need space to live, food to eat and consumer goods. The animal has less space because human take over of their habitat. The earth is overwhelmed because we crave more from the nature than it can produce in the same period of time.

On the third level is a very big space with a big earth sculpture. I think this is very spectacular. The earth is virtually brought very close to my eyes and it felt amazing.

My motivation to explore the world is still there, but the motivation of changing my lifestyle is bigger afterwards. What I learned from this exhibition is to always consider everything that I do, because every choice I make impact the global environment. Such as what I eat, how long my shower time is, which clothes I should buy, etc. Before I flew to Germany, I did not focus too much on natural problems as shown on the 2nd floor of this exhibition. My image of this earth is as beautiful as the first floor. Live in Germany helps me open my eyes wider about the destruction of nature and make efforts to be environmentally friendly.