Academic final project, Kunstakademie Düsseldorf

Materials: textiles, studio lighting, bar with furnishings, domestic furniture, printed matter, mannequins, window film, laser-cut fabric elements, book editions, found objects
Size: variable

dispersed non-existence unfolds as a staged environment in which temporal registers collapse. Upon entering the exhibition space, visitors encounter a constellation of objects, figures, and light that refuses linear narration. Past, present, and future appear not as distinct categories but as overlapping conditions within a single spatial arrangement.

At the center of the installation stands a functional bar titled die sogenannte Gegenwart (the so-called present). Five figures from different temporal and ideological contexts are suggested through clothed mannequins positioned around the space. Their presence is mediated through a series of Diaries of Bad Deeds, distributed across the bar and a secondary seating area referred to as the socialist corner. Rather than offering coherent biographies, the texts assemble fragments of worldview, contradiction, and self-description.

Colored studio lighting and tinted window films produce an artificial atmosphere that modulates perception. Zones of heightened clarity alternate with areas of visual opacity, lending the space a suspended, dreamlike quality. The lighting operates less as illumination than as a structuring device, shaping attention and spatial orientation.

The bar is periodically activated by a bartender serving drinks. While the gesture suggests hospitality and pause, it functions primarily as part of the installation’s scenography. Consumption, reading, and observation occur simultaneously, yet without resolving into genuine social exchange. The polished surface of the setting contrasts with the content of the diaries, which subtly destabilize the notion of a stable present and expose its constructed, ambivalent nature.

Realized with the kind support of the Party.Rent Group and the Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf.

Image 1-4 Installation view dispersed non-existence, 2023
Photos by Ivo Faber

© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn