Image: Center for Modern and Contemporary Art Debrecen
The Center for Modern and Contemporary Art Debrecen, known as MODEM, will open ‘Cultivators of Life: Growing Seedbeds of Knowledge’ on September 5, bringing together artists, gardeners, researchers and community initiatives to examine the garden as a site of knowledge production, care and ecological imagination.
The exhibition is being realised through a partnership between MODEM and tranzit.ro/București. Its premise treats the garden not simply as a cultivated physical space, but as a living structure in which forms of learning, maintenance and collective activity intersect. The announcement presents gardening as a practice connected to both social organisation and ecological thinking.
The project’s stated focus extends across artistic, horticultural, research-based and community-led approaches. Rather than describing the garden only through its visual or natural qualities, the exhibition considers how knowledge is generated within it and how acts of care shape relationships between people and their environments. The source material does not specify the individual works, media or participating artists.
The exhibition will open at MODEM in Debrecen at 4:30 p.m. on September 5. Adelina Luft and Krisztián Gábor Török are named as the curators. No closing date or full exhibition run is given in the announcement, so the opening is currently the only confirmed public date for the project.
Founded in 2006, MODEM is a modern and contemporary art centre at 1–3 Hunyadi Street in Debrecen. The institution’s programme includes exhibitions, education and art-pedagogical projects, alongside a collection and other public activities. Its current programme also includes exhibitions such as ‘Stitching Time,’ a parallel presentation of works by Mariann Imre and Sára Richter, scheduled from August 16 to October 25, 2026, and Emese Kádár’s ‘The Unrisen Sun,’ on view through September 6, 2026.
‘Cultivators of Life’ adds a research-oriented ecological project to that programme, connecting contemporary art with gardening practices, investigation and community initiatives. The exhibition will be presented at MODEM in Debrecen, with its opening scheduled for September 5 at 4:30 p.m.
