Text by Corinna Heumann, Image by Wolfgang Hunecke

A utopia begins with a single question. In the 1970s, it was a question that preoccupied Wolfgang Hunecke, then a student of theology and sociology: How can a more just world come into being?

He found answers not only in libraries but in Nicaragua. There, he experienced firsthand the dynamism of Liberation Theology and its leading figures. At the time, it was a distinctly Latin American movement. With growing momentum, it challenged the powerful family dynasties that, for decades and with the support of the United States, had treated their countries as private property, exploiting them to such an extent that much of the population saw little escape from deepening poverty.

While still in Bonn, Wolfgang Hunecke met the outstanding poet, priest, and later Minister of Culture, Ernesto Cardenal. Together with the actor Dietmar Schönherr, that encounter gave rise to a vision: art should not merely be contemplated—it should help move the world. It should bring people together, transcend borders, and create spaces in which something new could emerge.

Art Moves the World

What initially sounded like a dream became reality. In Granada, the Casa de los Tres Mundos was established—an international cultural center with a printmaking workshop, a music school, exhibitions, and artists from around the world. Together with the association Pan y Arte and many committed supporters, Wolfgang Hunecke helped bring this idea to life. He trained printmakers, worked on site, and transformed cultural exchange between Europe and Central America into a living practice.

It demonstrates how enduring institutions can grow out of human encounters. More often than not, it is not grand political programs that improve the world, but people who meet—often by chance—and inspire one another.

Inspiration in the Jungle

Wolfgang Hunecke’s own artistic work reflects this belief. On the islands of Lake Nicaragua, he discovered pre-Columbian petroglyphs, symbols carved into volcanic rock centuries ago by the region’s ancient cultures. With great care, he refined the technique of frottage, transferring these ancient traces onto paper and transforming them into prints. His works are not mere reproductions. They are a dialogue between past and present, between different worlds of ideas and different eras.

Particularly striking are his works inspired by the fossilized footprints of Acahualinca: more than 2,000-year-old human footprints, believed to have been left by people fleeing a volcanic eruption. Their footsteps remain visible to this day. They remind us that history is shaped not only by singular events, but by the paths people choose to walk.

What Endures?

Today, only part of the original vision of the Casa de los Tres Mundos survives. Renewed political repression has deprived the cultural center of its founding mission, and many of the people who built it were forced to leave Nicaragua.

And yet the utopia has not disappeared. It lives on in works of art, in friendships forged across continents, and in the conviction that culture can be far more than decoration. It can be a language of understanding. A form of remembrance. An act of resistance. A source of hope.

The Essence of a Utopia

The essence of a utopia is its endurance. It outlasts its own time. It changes the world. The traces it leaves behind are recognized, read, and carried forward by those who understand them. They are perceived in landscapes, in works of art, and above all in people who have the courage to transform the hope for a more just world into reality, again and again.