School of No Consequences

Exercises for a New Life

A project by Friedrich von Borries

What might a life look like that remains as free of consequences as possible – in the ecological sense, but also in the virological sense? Could the absence of consequences become a new regulative ideal, like freedom, justice and equality – impossible to achieve, but worth pursuing? What implications would pursuing it have for the material and immaterial shaping of our everyday life, for the economic and social order, for our beliefs and for the way we behave toward one another? What models can we discover for a life like this, in history and in the present day? All of these are questions posed by "School of No Consequences: Exercises for a New Life", an artistic and discursive project by Friedrich von Borries at MK&G. Von Borries combines collection objects with a self-study room specially created for the exhibition to create a new perspective on “sustainability” and to allow supposedly universal notions of a “right way of living” to be questioned. Here, visitors can experiment for themselves in giving up decisions, washing their hands of it, or practising not doing things. A discursive educational programme in the form of an app and the Scholarship for Doing Nothing complete the project.

"The School of No Consequences" is an initiative by the HFBK Hamburg in cooperation with the MK&G.

"The School of No Consequences" is sponsored by the Behörde für Wissenschaft, Forschung, Gleichstellung und Bezirke Hamburg (BWFGB), the Hamburg Open Online University (HOOU), the Friede Springer Stiftung, the Kursbuch Kulturstiftung and the Leinemann Kunststiftung Nikolassee and is supported by the Hamburg Innovation GmbH. Further partners include the Katholische Akademie Hamburg and the Evangelische Akademie der Nordkirche.

The discursive education programme as an app is a cooperation between the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg (HFBK) and the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (bpb) within the framework of the Hamburg Open Online University (HOOU).