The Weisswasser Model or the Measure of All Things

The performative and participative urban project “The Weisswasser Model” will stage five workshops to explore new uses for the town and tie into the artistic work conducted by the two Bauhaus students Wilhelm Wagenfeld and Ernst Neufert in Weisswasser in the 1930s and 1940s. To this day, the town represents a model for implementing the ideas of the Bauhaus in large-scale industry. In the 1930s Weisswasser was the centre of European glass production, but since German reunification, its population has shrunk by half. What is the legacy of the Bauhaus students and how can we use it to shape the future? In cooperation with the town’s residents, this project examines the everyday use of the town in the past and present and explores possibilities for its future. The results of excavated materials, surveys and interviews will be publicly presented in the form of texts, photos and films in the shop windows of vacant businesses, as LED displays and online media. Abandoned sites, such as the Glasfachschule (Glass Technical School), the Neufert-Bau, Volkshaus or former glassmaking factories, will be used as performance venues. A performative obstacle course in summer 2019 will serve to present the progress of the workshops. The project will conclude in autumn 2019 with the presentation of a documentary film and the revised website which will ensure continued access to the project’s findings as open-source material. In this way, Weisswasser can become a model for possible transformation even beyond the borders of Germany. The project’s inclusion in the international network of the Stiftung Haus Schminke will enhance the international visibility of the project, particularly in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Artistic directors: Stefan Nolte, Ruth Feindel
Dramaturgy: Hendrik Scheel
Participating artists: Constanze Fischbeck, La Hengst, Paiul Brodowsky, Lasse Myhr, Toni Jessau, Holger Schmidt, Johannes Roller, Christiane Lehmann