Don’t Mind the Gap: Leipzig Book Fair Stand Invites Visitors to Linger and Dream at the Imaginary Underground Station
The artistic exhibition stand was designed, planned, and built by an interdisciplinary team of students during long days in the workshop. The students came up with various designs and then decided together to implement the idea of Freie Kunst student Hauke Scholz. His idea of a metro station is an homage to artist Martin Kippenberger, who created a global, imaginary metro network with numerous installations in the 1990s. One of the artist's metro stations is even located on the grounds of the new Messe Leipzig.
The students are now expanding this network for visitors to the Book Fair in Hall 5 with a direct connection to Weimar and the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. The works and publications from the Faculty of Art and Design are also on display at the Metro stand, inspiring visitors to take a mental journey. Numerous students are participating with their works, including books, magazines, postcards, prints, and moving image pieces, which are waiting to be discovered and purchased over the four-day event. The university’s »LUCIA Verlag« publishing house will also be presenting books from its programme.
The limited budget proved to be both a challenge and an opportunity for the team from the specialist course. The students decided from the onset to use inexpensive and easily available materials. They took advantage of the well-organised procurement network within the university. Most of the materials used in the 80 square-metre exhibition stand were recycled leftovers from other university projects. The team also had support from the newly-established »Materialverteiler«, centre at the university where recyclable materials from architecture projects are collected and made available free of charge.
The specialist course »Ein Messestand für Leipzig« was supervised by Florian Hesselbarth at the Professorship of »Kunst und sozialer Raum« under Christine Hill.
Leipzig Book Fair
27 to 30 March 2025
Hall 5, Stand B600
Questions can be directed to Romy Weinhold, Press and Public Relations Officer for the Faculty of Art and Design by phone at +49 / 36 43 / 58 11 86 or by e-mail at romy.weinhold[at]uni-weimar.de