“All that is solid melts into air”, Marx wrote describing the corrosive effects in the global history of capitalism. Looking back on four years of our event series, we can only conclude that things are changing faster than most of us would wish, let alone find comfortable. And yet we must respond to these changes head-on and wholeheartedly. Figuring out how to handle radical change – and how people adapt to new circumstances time and again – are key questions explored by various academic disciplines. Psychology and psychoanalysis emphasise the extent to which these abilities are linked to a willingness to accept and mourn loss in order to be able to let go of it in the end. Finding a way to engage with a world that presents itself in a different way from one day to the next, is a social and individual challenge that we must confront.