What links the Fiat factory in Turin, the protected island of Tegel lake in Berlin and the former Copenhagen military base? These three remarkable democratic attempts of communication, education and self-government emerged in the last century, based on genuine democratic principles that make them still relevant today.

To develop and consolidate democratic structures is a slow and long process, which can take decades for the society to learn. It requires consensus and contin- uous e ort. The systematic elimination of democratic conditions, on the other hand, can be done quite quickly, over just a few years. By presenting three artistic positions approaching three social experiments, the exhibition focuses on the process of democratic construction. Have there been ideas and practices in the past that might be worth rethinking? Can the experience of the past practice give new impulses for
the future?

Inspired by Esperanto, a language that is independent of any nation, ensuring equal rights for all in the use of language, Giulia Bruno examines in her work one of the most promising linguistic experiments of the 19th and 20th century. Reconstructing the history of the Schulfarm Insel Scharfen- berg, which was founded as an important reform pedagogical experiment of the Weimar Republic, Zsolt Vásárhelyi and Kati Simon capture impressions on building democratic society through education. In her scripted video work, Nicoline van Harskamp addresses issues of freedom and consensus democracy, by examining the independent society of Christiania, a free town in the centre of Copenhagen.