How do we achieve enlightenment? What role is science given in our society, and what role myth? Do we need to find alternative categories for experience and alternative approaches to awakening consciousness? These questions are all raised by the artist Carsten Höller (born 1961, in Brussels) in his show in the Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin. Höller explores the myth of ‘soma’ – a drink with healing properties known among Verdic nomads in North India in the 2nd millennium BCE that promised enlightenment and access to the divine sphere, which was commonly used in rituals. The drink’s main ingredient is no longer exactly known to us; ethnomycologists and philologists generally posit the fly Amanita mushroom as the substance responsible for its effects. Set against this backdrop, Höller has devised a fantastical scenario that stands at the crossroads between art and science, laboratory and dream, supposed objectivity and heightened subjectivity.C/O Berlin presents 120 photographs and films from the oeuvre of Peter Lindbergh. From his classics icons of fashion photography to his Vogue Berlin Series of 2009. Including never before published Archive-Polaroids as well as documentary films, the exhibition provides insights into the photographer’s approach to his work.

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