On 03 April 2025, the International Dossier of Zurich’s University of the Arts (ZHdK) and the Zentrum Künste und Kulturtheorie (ZKK) jointly hosted ZHdK’s International Day titled Escape Artists. How to Change Human History.
We were delighted to have Professor David Wengrow, archaeologist and co-author of the international bestseller The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity for this year’s event, who talked about his work which has challenged commonly reproduced standard versions of human history as well as our historical understanding of human social freedoms.
Artist and video essayist Ursula Biemann presented her upcoming work ‘Dialogues with the Future’, which addresses the influence of Native American thought on the European Enlightenment and alludes to Graeber and Wengrow's discussion on the historical significance of ‘indigenous critique’ of European societies. In conversation with Anselm Franke, Professor of Curatorial Studies (ZHdK), and Judith Siegmund, Professor of Philosophical Aesthetics (ZHdK), Wengrow discussed how to escape from the contemporary traps of our political imaginary and took a range of questions from attending Curatorial Studies students. The round was then opened up to questions from the audience.
→ Find the full programme here.