»Public Arts Garage«: Six international universities show results of their experiments with collaborative, artistic work
Under the title »Virtual Tinkering«, students from a total of six universities worldwide present the results of the »Public Arts Garage« project. Working together in teams, they realised artistic projects in virtual exchange exploring different approaches to work with and in public spaces. Now a selection of artistic interventions and performances will be presented in a poster exhibition in the university library of the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar.
The course »Public Arts Garage« took place in parallel at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, University of Rennes 2, Concordia University Montreal, University College Cork, University of Barcelona and Queen's University Belfast. Following the idea of a »garage«, the teaching format was conceptualised as a free space for intellectual makers and tinkerers, an archive for tools and ideas, a retreat from the routines of everyday life and a meeting place for new, surprising encounters.
The students were brought together in teams across the partner institutions and worked together in virtual exchange. The participants came from different disciplines such as visual arts, anthropology, literature and linguistics as well as theatre and performance. In interdisciplinary collaboration, they found new methods to approach critical issues in public space in different contexts.
For example, student groups developed works that took place live in physical spaces, incorporating recorded and digital material. This allowed the works to be experienced simultaneously live on site and by an online audience. A performance in Montreal was accompanied by image and text elements from Belfast and projected live onto the hypermodern architecture of a Chinese metropolis. The resulting performances and interventions operate at the edges of artistic practice and explore the boundaries of digital and physical space.
The exhibition offers an insight into the hybrid nature of the project. Visitors can access additional digital content and videos via QR codes. The exhibition makers recommend bringing a mobile phone or tablet and headphones.
Further information on the project can be found at https://pag2022.uni-weimar.de.
»Virtual Tinkering«
Exhibition duration:
15 – 20 October 2022
Opening hours:
Monday – Friday, 9 a.m. – 11 p.m.
Saturday, 10 – 18 h
Exhibition location:
Bauhaus-Universität Weimar
University Library, lower foyer
Steubenstrasse 6
99423 Weimar
»Public Arts Garage« was initiated by Dr. Alexandra Toland, Professoron for »Arts and Research« and Martin Leibinger, PhD student at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar.
The project was supported by the DAAD in the programme IVAC (International Virtual Academic Collaboration,) by the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar in the framework of the programme »Bauhaus.Module« and is a pilot project in the network of the Graduate School »Creative Approachs to Public Space« (CAPS) at University Rennes 2.