Exhibition by Camille de Toledo with RIVER WALKS by Yi-Ting Wang
WHERE
WHEN
Stiftung Demokratie Saarland, Europaallee 18 66113 Saarbrücken
LANGUAGE
ENGLISH & GERMAN
PROGRAMME
What if rivers, forests, or mountains had rights of their own – if nature were no longer treated as an object, but recognised as a legal subject?
Opening on 13 May 2026 at the Stiftung Demokratie Saarland, the exhibition RIGHTS OF NATURE: A WORLDWIDE MOVEMENT presents an installation by the acclaimed writer, artist, and curator Camille de Toledo, CURE’s artist in residence from May to July 2026. In the exhibition, Toledo brings together, for the first time, key texts from a global legal shift: excerpts from constitutions, laws, and court rulings from the Americas, Oceania, and Europe in which nature is recognised as a subject of law.
These documents mark a profound revolution in our understanding of the world. They question the classical separation of human beings and nature as subject and object, opening up new perspectives on living together in a natural environment that is becoming increasingly hostile to humans in our age of ecological crises. At the same time, they ask – without offering an answer – whether granting rights to natural entities such as rivers or bodies of water could be a step towards reshaping, and possibly repairing, a damaged understanding of nature marked by extractivism.
The exhibition also makes it possible to see and experience the international scope of the movement to recognise the rights of nature, while inviting reflection on what elements bind this international movement together and on its significance for democracy. It also shows how certain questions tied to national legislation can – and must – be understood within their own specific contexts.
Concurrently, the Stiftung Demokratie Saarland is presenting RIVER WALKS, a project carried out on the Saar by the Taiwanese art historian Yi-Ting Wang, a Käte Hamburger Centre CURE fellow in 2025/26. The River Walks are guided explorations along the Saar in summer 2026. Led by experts including Birgit Metzger, Cleanup Saarland, Susanne Nimmesgern, Jochen Kubiniok, and Isabelle Charpentier, each offers a different perspective on the river. They open up a new view on the post-industrial river landscape and invite participants to imagine new futures for the ways in which humans and the Saar relate to each other.
The exhibitions will open with an event on 13 May 2026 at 6:00 p.m. in the foyer of the Stiftung Demokratie Saarland. Please register for the opening here.
Organised by the Käte Hamburger Centre CURE (Saarland University), the Stiftung Demokratie Saarland, and the Goethe-Institut Nancy.
