COMMON SPACES – Räume der Gemeinschaft

Pina Bausch Centre under construction, Bundesallee 260, Wuppertal
Free admission

How are places created where people enjoy coming together? Students from the University of Wuppertal’s programs in Industrial Design, Fine Arts, and Architecture are developing contributions on spatial structures, communal dining, performative situations and manifestos, as well as questions of sustainable living and housing as part of the exhibition COMMON SPACES. Spaces of Community at the Pina Bausch Centre under construction.

The project centers on the question of how design can enable encounters, exchange, and collective action. Through a variety of approaches, forms and situations emerge that do not merely address community but actively produce it: open, usable, negotiable, and in motion.

The project understands communal spaces as an open field. For this reason, the students’ contributions from different disciplines enter into dialogue with artistic interventions, performances, and works by invited artists and other participants.

The video work Kras û fistan – The Fabric of Havîn by Havîn Al-Sîndy expands this field through research into nearly forgotten Halay group dances within Kurdish culture, exploring the intersections of tradition, political activism, celebration, mourning, and resistance.

Additional artistic interventions by Sebastian Bartel, mackerinnenanstalt, Katharina Maderthaner, Linda Nadji, Lukas Ülger, and Heinrich Weid engage with themes of community, encounter, or the site itself.

The project is initiated and curated by Katharina Maderthaner (University of Wuppertal) in collaboration with Bettina Milz and Franziska Hartmann (Pina Bausch Centre), Martina Fineder, Nora Karl and Linda Nadji (University of Wuppertal).

Friday, 10 July 2026, 7:00–11:00 pm

Dinner, Manifestos, and Situations

Food becomes the occasion for a festive gathering: students from the University of Wuppertal invite visitors to an evening of collective cooking and dining, manifestos, actions, installations, and social exchange. At the same time, artistic interventions by invited artists open up further perspectives on community, encounter, and place.  

Saturday, 11 July 2026, 12:00–9:00 pm

Performances_BSB presents Peers and Pioneers Rotting on a Sofa

Blue Sugar Boundaries (BSB), a band and artists’ collective founded in 2024 by Sonja Heim, Marie Schubert, Viktoria Feierabend, and Linda Skellington, explores themes of shame, vulnerability, and the expectations placed on both performers and audiences. As part of this ongoing investigation, twelve participants from Düsseldorf and London have been invited to present short performances atop a towering sculptural sofa structure.

Under the title BSB presents Peers and Pioneers Rotting on a Sofa, the project unfolds throughout the day in the form of twelve short performances ranging from magic tricks and musical interventions to experimental actions and spontaneous gestures. The sofa tower functions simultaneously as stage, sculpture, gathering place, and social architecture.

Drawing on traditions of performance art, happenings, and participatory practices, the work questions established distinctions between performers and spectators. By transforming an object associated with comfort, intimacy, and passivity into a site of public appearance, Blue Sugar Boundaries creates a framework in which acts of revelation, hesitation, failure, and expression become visible. The project understands performance not as a demonstration of skill, but as a shared condition—one in which peers and pioneers alike negotiate the uncertainties of being seen.

Participants:

Students from the University of Wuppertal (Industrial Design, Architecture, and Fine Arts)

Havîn Al-Sîndy
Blue Sugar Boundaries and additional contributors
Sebastian Bartel
mackerinnenanstalt Katharina Maderthaner
Linda Nadji
Christian Schreckenberger
Lukas Ülger
Heinrich Weid

Along the B7 in Wuppertal, two places of encounter are now becoming connected: Kunsthalle Barmen and the Pina Bausch Centre under construction. Blue Sugar Boundaries and the collective mackerinnenanstalt move between the two locations—with an installation at Kunsthalle Barmen as part of the exhibition Merry Company – Forms of Community (until 13 September 2026) and a performance at the Pina Bausch Centre under construction.