At the end of all things, when institutions decay like rotting wood, a final act rises from the ashes of culture: Benedikt Hartl, architect, artist – the last fellow – declares, in a near-ceremonial gesture, nothing less than the official end of Villa Massimo. What follows is not a requiem, but a radical new beginning: the founding of a Tree Museum – without walls, without display cases, without security. A museum that grows

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On the dying grounds of a glorious past, a new, nomadic cult of the present emerges. From a silver suitcase, the “Tree Museum” grows like a Trojan organism: built from ratchet straps, tent fabric, soil, and test tubes with seeds – harbingers of a coming world. A place beyond representation, beyond protection. Culture that no longer defends itself, but takes root.

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The performance begins in the garden of Villa Massimo – once a place of silence, now a stage for upheaval. A renowned Italian artist assembles the museum from the suitcase: like a survivor after the collapse of the world. Then comes the turning point: the artist herself – together with the fictional Culture Minister Wolfram Weimer – declares the end of the Villa. The institution is dissolved, its staff farewelled in an absurd, almost liturgical dismissal ceremony. The audience, witnesses to a requiem for stone and state, are invited to plant tree seeds – a gesture of hope, rebellion, and renewal. Simultaneously, Opposite Office presents a logistical manifesto: how the nine largest trees on Earth – alive – will be transported to Rome and planted on the grounds of Villa Massimo. A wooden monument and memory for each fellow. Only the last remains. Hartl remains – as guardian of a place that no longer exists.

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The path leads to the studio: a space transformed into a post-apocalyptic forest. Mist, soil, gleaming metal objects, floating architectural models, and broken fragments – remnants of a future that never arrived. Amidst this twilight, the film The Last Fellow plays. It is not a work – it is a handover. A consecration. The Villa is entrusted to the curator of the Tree Museum. The transfer is complete.

This exhibition is not a homage, nor an obituary – it is a negotiation with the questions of our time: What remains when even memory withers? Who speaks when no one listens? And can meaning survive when the world loses it?