Artful cooperation: Students transform hallways into creative oasis!

Artful cooperation: Students transform hallways into creative oasis!

In an innovative art campaign entitled “Collective Painting – Art in Architecture” at the University of Siegen, students and employees from various departments worked together to redesign a hallway. The event took place in Hall A of the Hölderlin Building on the 7th level and aimed to decorate the walls with abstract patterns inspired by neural networks, graphs and data trees. The idea was brought to life at a university lecturer's service meeting in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, with the support of Rector Prof. Dr. Stefanie Reese and the art professor Prof. Johanna Schwarz, who was contacted by Natalia Berg from the electrical engineering examination office. The use of art to promote interdisciplinary collaboration was the focus of the campaign, which involved around 20 participants, including Vice Rector Prof. Dr. Andreas Kolb, took part.

Participants worked with techniques such as ink, tassels, stamping tools and cardboard stencils to capture their creative contributions. By using abstract representations of graphs and networks, participation was made easier. This form of creative work reflects a variety of methods that have been used since the 1960s and 1970s in various art movements such as land art and public art to promote dialogue between art and society. Loud kubi-online.de It is crucial that artists provide access to art and create spaces for engaging with artistic work.

Interdisciplinary collaboration and cultural education

The art event at the University of Siegen is an example of the increasing phenomena of community and collaboration in art and digital media culture. How zkmb.de notes, community requires unexpected collaborations that go beyond individual achievements. The anthropological perspective views humans as social beings whose self-development is made possible through cooperation. This type of cooperation is essential today to promote cultural innovation.

The results of the painting campaign will be documented photographically and in a video that will be published on Instagram at @wanderspace_siegen. An exhibition is also planned for the coming summer semester in the wanderspace showroom on Sandstrasse in Siegen. Such participatory art projects are not only an impulse, but also a means of critically reflecting on the institutional framework for collaborative forms of work that play an essential role in art education and cultural education.

The reflection on participation and community is also reflected in the challenges that the 21st century brings with it, such as digitalization, migration and the ecological crisis. Artists have long since begun to include these topics in their work in order to stimulate social discourse. Beyond the boundaries of traditional art history, as Suzi Gablik formulated with the concept of “Connective Aesthetics” in the 1990s, the dynamic structures of community emerge that must be continually renegotiated.