Art in Space - Artists Question the Volkshaus

Art in Space - Artists Question the Volkshaus

An art event as part of the trial operation at Volkshaus Rotthausen, organized by the Department of Architecture in cooperation with the City of Gelsenkirchen

As part of the trial operation, an art event took place at Volkshaus Rotthausen in Gelsenkirchen on its closing weekend from 3–5 June 2016, in which artists, including graduates, a student, and a research associate from Alanus University, as well as a local artist and an artist from outside the region, explored the Volkshaus in different ways. Spatial installations activated specific locations within the Volkshaus and opened up new spaces, sound installations made the sounds of the building perceptible, and performances addressed the past and a possible future of this place and the people shaping its transformation.

To open the art event, Prof. Swen Geiss welcomed the audience and highlighted the significance of the event within the overall trial operation at Volkshaus Rotthausen. Prof. Dr. Gabriele Oberreuter then introduced the event conceptually and related the various artistic engagements with the Volkshaus to one another.

“Curtain up” was the motto in the large hall of the Volkshaus: with their expansive installation, Barbara Locher-Otto and Miriam Hamel addressed the relationship between the Volkshaus and the surrounding district. A large, site-specific installation emerged from many individual contributions by local residents, creating an image of a wide variety of lifeworlds and making the hall perceptible in a new way.

Valerie Häußler explored the space and qualities of the gallery in the corridor of the Volkshaus in an intuitive, body-centered dialogue. With “Flur_Gedicht,” an expansive, atmospheric intervention was created that revealed existing potentials and spatial qualities and made them perceptible to the viewer.

With the installation “Always Sporting” in the cloakroom of the Volkshaus, Lukas Thein drew on motifs from sport and team play. Apparently authentic material from the early period of the Volkshaus and its use was placed in correspondence with obviously new objects and contrasted through deliberate interventions.

“Have you heard yet?” Julian Rybarski explored the sounds and music of the Volkshaus, their placements and displacements. The unique history of the building’s music and noises—a repository of the spoken word, played tones, and more or less accidental sounds—was woven here into a new installation in which the sounds alone, without their producers, became audible to visitors in an audio walk and a sound installation.

In her video performance “Depending on what happens, something happens,” Mila Burghardt placed the human being at the center and asked: “How much of the self remains when trying to meet society’s demand for permanent self-realization, and what do you actually do with the self that was already there before you realized it?”

In their performance “UpsideDOWN – Performative explorations of turning space inside out,” Milena Hendel, Johanna Hendel, Gabriel Schunck and Dimitri Schwartz posed questions about the Volkshaus: “How empty is the place where something was? Where what was? Something that perhaps is no longer there—and is it no longer there? Why not?”

Project lead
Miriam Hamel (lead)

Participating artists
Mila Burghardt, Miriam Hamel, Valerie Häußler, Johanna Hendel, Milena Hendel, Barbara Locher-Otto, Julian Rybarski, Gabriel Schunck, Dimitire, Schwartz, Lukas Thein

Client
City of Gelsenkirchen, Department of Building Construction and Real Estate

Project duration
3–5 June 2016