„We need art now more than ever. Human artistic intelligence is our compass through uncertainty and disruption.”
Madeleine Schwinge
Photo: Olivier Hess
Profile
Madeleine Schwinge is an art and future researcher, multidisciplinary artist, curator, advisor, and speaker with more than two decades of experience in creative entrepreneurship and transformation design.
Her work sits at the intersection of creativity, human insight and strategy, promoting curiosity, empathy and systems thinking to foster transformation in complex contemporary landscapes. Her approach is grounded in the belief that artistic intelligence is key to navigate change – by asking deeper questions, nurturing imagination, and combining critical and speculative perspectives.
With a passion for philosophy and systemic thinking, she dissects the upheavals of our time with regard to their impact on the human psyche and existential being.
Madeleine Schwinge calls for a paradigm shift in our relationship with the world. She elaborates on this, along with its underlying principles, in HOLITOPIA®—both a manifesto and a pragmatic space for shaping immediate future.
She creates experiential spaces that enable people to discover, discuss, and develop new perspectives on themselves, social relationships, and planetary contexts. Her work includes artistic practice, exhibitions, conversations, lectures, workshops, advisory and publications.
She is founder and director of the re:future lab, an internationally networked institute at the interface of art, science, and society, launched in 2020 to catalyze debate on topical ecological, economical and cultural challenges. Co-produced with a community of visionary fellows, and often in collaboration with academic and institutional partners, its hybrid program explores diverse possible future scenarios, fosters preparedness for uncertainty, and sparks agency for change through the kaleidoscope of art.
Her pioneering curatorial work was honored with the Prize for Innovation and International Recognition by the Berlin Senate’s “Projekt Zukunft” initiative.
„We need art now more than ever. Human artistic intelligence is our compass through uncertainty and disruption.”
Madeleine Schwinge
HOLITOPIA is a manifesto for artistic intelligence, a Cabinet of Wonders brimming with possibilities, and scope for action shaping today's future.
Photo: Birte Filmer
“Madeleine, is a genious badass, brave as hell, a fearless expert. It's exactly those hosts and curators like her that actually are the nourishing ground, the infrastructure of everything what this crazy exciting Berlin cultural scene is about.“
Sophia Gräfe,
Humboldt University
Madeleine Schwinge’s projects are largely self-initiated, but many also arise from external invitations, whether in the form of commissions or collaborations.
One recent project involved curating an exhibition and program for design researcher Rasa Weber as part of the _matter festival 2025, commissioned by the Matters of Activity Cluster of Excellence at Humboldt University of Berlin, in conjunction with the Berlin University Alliance.
Photo: Michael Pfisterer
Methods and
Perspectives
Madeleine is a thought leader and bridge-builder across art, science, and society.
Her work is situated between artistic practice and education, research and knowledge transfer—at the intersection of creativity, human insight, and strategy—and fosters curiosity, empathy, and systemic thinking to drive change in complex contemporary contexts.
Her research focuses on thought models and innovations that shape our present, while also anticipating new positive futures that are still mere speculations. Her guiding questions are: “What does it mean to be human while coexisting with non-human artificial and natural intelligences?” “What does a good life mean?”, “What is art—and what role can art play in successfully shaping the future?”, “What can we learn from artistic practice?”, “How can we all become ‚future artists‘?”
Madeleine Schwinge explores the world from transdisciplinary perspectives. Her curatorial projects are experimental laboratories and spaces for shared experiences aimed at negotiating a better future. A blend of diverse methods and practices gives rise to a multidimensional stage bringing together art, design, and architecture; music and theater; neurobiology and technology; psychology and philosophy; politics and futurology.
All projects simultaneously look at the very small and the very large, thrive on dialogue and collaboration, and dare to dream—and hope—through the kaleidoscope of art.
"Hope is the primal force of human imagination—and art is the medium through which this takes shape."
Madeleine Schwinge
“To shape the future, it takes a creative mind capable of thinking in many different directions, and Madeleine Schwinge is exactly that kind of visionary.”
Monopol Magazine
With her diverse experience and rare blend of knowledge, Madeleine is a valued and sought-after speaker and panelist in contexts related to knowledge cultures, mindset shifts, creative agency, artistic intelligence and futures literacy.
Photo: Birte Filmer
Professional
background
Since her early youth, art has always been part of her identity and the framework of her Being. While preparing for her Abitur, she once heard a music critic say of a pianist that, although he played with technical perfection, he lacked sufficient life experience to be truly great. The comment profoundly influenced her choice of studies, for despite her urge to devote her life to art, she still felt like an empty vessel when it came to life itself. In part due to this experience, and in part due to her entrepreneurial family background, she initially began studying a different field.
Driven by her interest in the political and systemic forces shaping our society, she decided to study economics. She holds a diploma in business management from DHBW University Stuttgart (1993) and is a certified systemic coach (2001). Throughout her studies, her focus has been on future research, ethical leadership and change management that stem from it.
After a rapid career in brand management for a global multi-brand group, she founded her own firm in 1999, a bureau for corporate identity, strategy and creative leadership. For many years, she helped C-level executives and entrepreneurs bring their visions to life. Even though she received several offers for roles in senior management or as a company successor, she stuck to her calling in the arts.
In 2003–2004, alongside her professional work, she studied art history at Freie Universität Berlin (no degree) and, from 2009 to 2011, trained in painting at KUNSTGUT Academy of Fine Arts, Berlin, at the Traunkirchen Summer Academy (2009 with Xenia Hausner), and at the Berlin University of the Arts (2015 with Valérie Favre, who became her mentor). From 2010 to 2011, she trained in curating (Berlin University of the Arts)—where her instructors included influential museum directors and exhibition curators, such as Eugen Blume (Hamburger Bahnhof Museum of Contemporary Art, Berlin), Dirk Luckow (Deichtorhallen, Hamburg), Daniel Tyradellis (Berlin Museum of Medical History at the Charité), Leonie Baumann (Kunsthochschule Weißensee), Heike Mertens (Schering Stiftung) and Katja Blomberg (Haus am Waldsee).
In 2009, she founded her artist studio and has since been developing a conceptual Gesamtkunstwerk that unites her eclectic expertise and perspectives, encompassing drawing, collage, painting, installation, intervention, curation, and advisory. Her works have been exhibited in Germany, Austria, and France and were nominated for the Social Art Award in 2019. Her artistic practice and curatorial work are closely intertwined and deeply rooted in her artistic research.
In 2020 Madeleine founded the re:future lab, an internationally networked institute at the interface of art, science, and society with the mission to catalyze debate on economical, ecological and cultural challenges. Co-produced with a community of visionary fellows, and often in collaboration with academic and institutional partners, its hybrid program explores diverse possible future scenarios, fosters preparedness for uncertainty, and sparks agency for change through the kaleidoscope of art.
Her pioneering curatorial work was honored with the Prize for Innovation and International Recognition by the Berlin Senate’s “Projekt Zukunft” initiative.
Madeleine was a visiting lecturer at the HTW University of Applied Sciences in Berlin in the master's program in Systemic Design (2023-2025).
From 2009 to 2018, reflecting her deep interest in systemic psychology and socio-political research, she served as a strategic and creative consultant to political scientist and transformation researcher Dr. Petra Bock and subsequently worked as a teaching coach at the latter's academy from 2021 to 2022. In 2025, she became a member of the advisory board of the newly founded Dr. Bock Institute.
She is engaged with the WFSF World Future Studies Federation (a UNESCO Partner) and the Gesellschaft für künstlerische Forschung in Deutschland (gkfd). She served the Ogilvy Futuring Science and Ethics Advisory Board in 2022-2023, and was appointed a founding member of Berlin Design e.V. in 2023.
„For me, art is not a profession, but a sensitive way of perceiving the world and finding meaning.“
Madeleine Schwinge
“Openness and optimism are apparently her seat belts, by which she has taken place in her space capsule.”
Gesine Borcherdt,
WELT am Sonntag
Madeleine loves exploring new worlds and sharing experiences. She supports individuals, companies, and institutions with concept development and transformation processes.
Her extensive knowledge on ultra-contemporary art also comes into play when advising on building an art collection or purchasing specific works.
Photo: Michael Pfisterer
artistic
practice
Madeleine’s multifaceted practice combines drawing, collage, painting, installation, intervention, and text.
Her work draws on European art history, philosophy, mythology, futurology, psychology, and aesthetics as forms of knowledge. Inspired by Dada and Fluxus, as well as references from music, fashion, and pop culture, she questions what it means to be both a private individual and a global subject in an accelerating, alienated, and threatened world.
Melancholic, poetic, and often peppered with quotes from her personal photo album, she reflects on life’s major themes. Conceived as a mental and symbolic universe, her visual narratives are rooted in a metamodern logic: at once serious and empathetic, nostalgic and ironically detached, futuristic and critical. Her observations are shaped of everyday life in epochal shift, emotions, traumas, and memories—yet they do not follow a linear course. Her art combines fragmentation and humor, offering a nuanced reflection on the intersection between the personal and the universal, where inner and outer worlds collide.
Madeleine works primarily in series, which she has been developing since 2017 in two distinct bodies of work: While “WELTINNENRAUM” explores the inner turmoil of our psyche, “THE PSYCHEDELIC CHICKS” is a fictional punk rock band whose “songs” bear witness to the pressures of a complex outside world—caught between crumbling dreams and atmospheres of resistance.
Her collages, part of the “THE PSYCHEDELIC CHICKS” group, were nominated for the 2019 Social Art Award, and included in a scholarly publication on post-studio and feminist art. Her works have been shown in group and solo shows in Germany, Austria, and France.
"I am a conceptualist and a pragmatic dreamer.“