SOFIA MAGDITS

Boxenstopp2

A living group exhibition.  25 artists, 15 countries. 

organised and curated by sofia magdits and rosalie becher

The project “Boxenstopp” was born out of the desire to create a space for exchanging and sharing with people. Sharing of time, space and art, and exchanging of ideas, feelings and knowledge. For one week the exhibition space of the Erkrather Str. 365 in Düsseldorf, Germany turned into a functional house where the artists cohabitated with each other and with their works of art. We extended this invitation of sharing to the whole audience by organizing different activities like an online radio day, a barbeque, two concerts, a sunday brunch and the usual vernissage party. People were invited to come, listen to music, dance together, play some board games, share a meal, share a drink, weave together, talk with a friend or with a stranger. Rediscovering the beauty of quotidian activities.

This exhibition merged students from the exchange program 2021/2022 of the Ecole des Beaux Arts de Paris and the exchange programm 2022 of the Düsseldorf Kunstakademie, as well as regular and graduated students from both art schools. The participants come from all over the world (Germany as well as from Iceland, Sweden, UK,  Montenegro, Brasil, Peru, Serbia, Israel, Canada, China, Korea and Colombia) and this created a very own, temporary ‘melting pot’ of cultures, ideas and worldviews. For a period of one week, the artists lived, ate, worked and slept together in the exhibition space. It became a connecting space, a space of bridges across boundaries, celebrating human relationships and the convivial interaction between people as well as plurality, interculturality and interdisciplinarity.

With the metaphor of a ‘Boxenstopp’ which is German for pit stop, we wanted to emphasize the time, this short stay in a place, coming from somewhere and going somewhere else afterwards. The duration of this project reflects the transience of life and of moments.

“Boxenstopp” is a proposal for a space that merges art and quotidian life and invites people to stay, pause, observe, talk and exist together. Due to the broad multicultural network, we want the project to be expanded in the future and to make further pit stops around the world.

This project was founded by the ministry of culture and science of North Rhine Westphalia.