‘Europe-n’ was a collaborative research project between 10 European universities, galleries and museums exploring new models for conceptualising Europe. Funded by the Goethe Institute, it took the form of a number of international exhibitions, publications and conferences in 2011–13. A curator specialising in contemporary art, Hammonds was invited to lead the RCA’s contribution as a co-organising partner. Hammonds’ approach to exhibitions is a discursive process of intellectual exchange with artists, resulting in new artworks drawing on his research.
As co-curator of the series of three exhibitions ‘Scenarios About Europe 1, 2, 3’ at the Galerie für Zeitgenössische Kunst, Leipzig (September 2011–March 2012), Hammonds worked with international artists to explore current affairs in Europe, particularly those touching on individual freedom and public responsibility. Adopting the speculative model of the ‘scenario’ used in disaster planning, he drew on dystopic sci-fiction novels to model new ideas about the role of the media, the environment and ‘third sector’ groups in forming contemporary ideas of Europe. The exhibition, which attracted c.30,000 visitors, was accompanied by a book, Thinking Europe: The Scenario Book (2012), to which Hammonds contributed an essay on the potential of the exhibition as a form of speculation.
As an extension of this research, Hammonds curated an exhibition under the aegis of ‘Europe-n’: ‘The Europa Triangle’ (RCA Galleries, London, July–August 2012) with support from the EU Culture Fund. Hammonds and seven individual or groups of artists explored the ways in which particular geometric forms – triangles, pyramids and cones – have been deployed as models for social structures. Hammonds’ book, The Europa Triangle (2012), which accompanied the show, examined the historic use of these spatial models as social and technical metaphors. Hammonds also presented a related paper entitled ‘On the point of catastrophe’ at Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin (2012).