Dream 06: Venus’ Forest

 Vernissage: June 27th, 2026, from 2 p.m.

Lavanya Honeyseeda | Lakhura Rising

Sasperella la Sirène | “Drifting weightlessly through the ether”

We are dreaming of World Peace. The program of the sixth install of Lovelab’s Dream series  features Stefanie Müller’s documentary on the 2024 World Peace Conference, followed by a discussion with the organizers; art and performance by Lavanya Honeyseeda as the extraterrestrial peace ambassador Lakhura; and nouveau works by Tim Ra. Sasperella la Sirène pervades the Venus Forest with ethereal soundscapes.

Mars has lost his way in the Forest of Venus and fell asleep. Frivolous satyrs turn his weapons of war into toys, while Venus watches —mistress of the wilderness, where peace is not gentleness but untamed power, stronger than any army. Sandro Botticelli painted the “Venus and Mars” motif (left) around 1485 as an allegory of love overcoming war.

Lavanya Honeyseeda (left), as Lakhura, channels the power of Venus to heal the world’s pain. She holds the space in which Mars rests, embodied by Tim Ra (right). From their union emerges Harmonia: harmony. Eternal peace.

The peace that Immanuel Kant envisioned in 1795 in his essay on Perpetual Peace does not spring from virtue, but from the rational self-interest of nations in a rules-based order. Even “a people of devils” could achieve it. A foreshadowing of the United Nations.

The capacity for violence and humiliation is part of who we are—just as much as the capacity for empathy and cooperation. Peace, according to peace researcher Johan Galtung, is a practice of rapprochement—and of civil resistance where injustice prevails. And it begins with the willingness to confront one’s own pain.

Stefanie Müller’s documentary about the World Peace Conference initiated by Saskia Baumgart and Dominikus Vogl, which brought together people from all over the world, portrays peace as a lived encounter—with other people and with one’s own shadows.

Sandro Botticelli: Venus & Mars.