[4] The concept of the four curators Arno Brandlhuber, Olaf Grawert, Nikolaus Hirsch and Christopher Roth prevailed in a public two-stage open competition in 2019.
[5] Because of the optimistic approach, the jury has chosen the cinematic contribution[6] and was the responsibility of the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community (German: Bundesministerium des Innern und für Heimat).
The team choose to use film to feature real experts who fictionally look back from the year 2038 and explain how the world overcame a "profound crisis" in the 2020s and became a better place afterwards.
[13][14] The protagonists Billie and Vincent have beamed back to a deserted Venice of the year 2021 and talk about this strange past on their way to the German pavilion.
They address topics such as digitization, platform economy, exploitation of planetary resources, capitalism built on structural disadvantage, or new forms of coexistence.
[17] While the curators initially planned to address three global crises, the financial markets, migration and climate, as the starting point for the exhibition 2038, a fourth one had to be added: the virus.
[21] The issues include contributions by Andrés Arauz, Diann Bauer, Lara Verena Bellenghi, Benjamin Bratton, Anne Katrin Bohle, Elizabeth Diller, Christian Drosten, Guerilla Architects, Francis Kéré, Lukas Kubina, Lesley Lokko, Sam Lubicz, Dorte Mandrup, Renzo Martens, Caroline Nevejan, Sabine Oberhuber and Thomas Rau, Joanna Pope, Christian Posthofen, Anna Yeboah, among others.
Featuring fictional essays and stories by 2038 protagonists such as Tatiana Bilbao, Ludwig Engel and Olaf Grawert, Mitchell Joachim, Evgeny Morozov, Hilary Mason, Leif Randt, Christopher Roth, Mark Wigley and others.