For the year 2026/2027, under the heading “Red Lines”, we will be exploring figures of thought that set boundaries with a signalling effect. What power dynamics and aesthetic procedures are used to draw red lines, and to what end? How are they crossed, ignored, or defended? Where do they lead, and can you find your footing on “thin red lines”?
Just as they mark geographical and geopolitical areas, red lines separate realms of what is possible and what can be said. Currently this is visible in the culturalization of societal conflicts: political disputes are increasingly staged as “culture wars”, in which red lines encourage the formation of camps constituted by irreconcilable differences. In the framework of our annual theme, we also intend to situate these dynamics of escalation historically.
Temporal processes are also indicated by red lines: if one thinks of climate curves or stock prices, red lines promise to shed light on past or projected developments. We can find further variants in the red threads of writing, which have a temporal component as they guide readers and metaphorically facilitate the navigation of texts. At times, red lines also manifest quite concretely in texts and images through editorial practices, crossing out what is to be discarded and underscoring what cannot be understood.
Red lines appear impossible to overlook, warning against transgression, while at the same time inviting us to touch and cross them. As utterances and markings, they represent not only boundaries, but also occasions for agitation and exchange over the disregard for such boundaries – as structural elements of discourse formation, of debates and controversies. With the events related to our annual theme, we would like to embark on expeditions with guests on stage and in the audience: along various red lines, always on both sides of the distinction.
