WANDlabor links art and life sciences

Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences and Bonn University Hospital present the art project art@immunosensation with a mural measuring more than 3 x 30 metres.

The ImmunoSensation2 Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bonn brings together more than 500 researchers and promotes interdisciplinary exchange among the participating scientists. This exchange gains a new level of reflection through the art project art@immunosensation. Together, artists from Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences in Alfter and scientists from the Cluster of Excellence, under the direction of Prof. Willem-Jan Beeren (Architecture) and Prof. Paul Jonas Petry (Sculpture), are creating a so-called WANDlabor in the foyer of the Biomedical Center II (BMZII) at Bonn University Hospital (UKB). A wall area measuring more than 3 x 30 metres will be continuously developed together over a project period of one year.

The artists draw inspiration from the scientific work carried out in the building, which they reinterpret time and again. “It is a joint creative process that emerges in part through dialogue between the scientists and the artists. The result of this productive exchange is a constantly evolving work of art that reflects the content of local research from the laboratory into the building’s foyer, sometimes more concretely and sometimes more abstractly,” says Prof. Willem-Jan Beeren, who developed the concept together with his colleague Prof. Paul Petry. The wall, which separates the public area of the building from the laboratory wing, thus becomes a membrane between science and society, with art as the medium. In the future, too, the artwork is intended to draw the attention of passers-by into the building and initiate interaction between science and the public.

In the presence of the spokespersons for the ImmunoSensation2 Cluster of Excellence, Prof. Waldemar Kolanus and Prof. Gunther Hartmann, the Deputy Medical Director of UKB, Prof. Alexandra Philipsen, the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Bonn, Prof. Bernd Weber, the Rector of Alanus University, Prof. Hans-Joachim Pieper, and Prof. Willem-Jan Beeren, Professor of Architecture and Art in Dialogue at Alanus University, the official opening of the WANDlabor at UKB took place on 1 June.

The WANDlabor in the foyer of BMZII is open to the public Monday to Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Art as a place of exchange

To create a new space for exchange in the long term as well, another artwork is being created on the grounds of BMZII in collaboration with Frowin Schweer (graduate in Sculpture) and Sebastian Keller (graduate in Architecture). A 12-metre-long table-bench combination will in future serve as a place of communication. Up to 40 people can be seated there. “The focus is equally on scholarly discussion among researchers and on exchange with an interested public,” says Prof. Gunther Hartmann, one of the spokespersons for the ImmunoSensation2 Cluster of Excellence. The artwork sees itself as a social sculpture and at the same time forms an aesthetic counterpoint to the park-like open space between the new building opened in 2021 and Siegmund-Freud-Straße, which borders UKB’s Venusberg Campus.

Contact:

Dr. Julia Wedel
Press Spokesperson
Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences
Tel.: +49 (0)2222 9321 – 1942
E-mail: julia.wedel@alanus.edu

Images, from left:

01: Prof. Gunther Hartmann and Prof. Waldemar Kolanus (ImmunoSensation2), artist Anne von Hoyningen-Huene (Alanus University), Prof. Willem-Jan Beeren (Alanus University), Prof. Hans-Joachim Pieper (Alanus University), artist Lukas Thein (Alanus University)

02 & 03: Prof. Waldemar Kolanus and Prof. Gunther Hartmann (ImmunoSensation2), Prof. Alexandra Philipsen (UKB), artist Anne von Hoyningen-Huene (Alanus University), Prof. Willem-Jan Beeren (Alanus University), Prof. Hans-Joachim Pieper (Alanus University), artist Lukas Thein (Alanus University)

© Bonn University Hospital (UKB)/J. F. Saba