What do we not dare to say? Which of these are social taboos, which are private secrets? The light installation “I NEVER TOLD YOU”, in cooperation with the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences, illuminated stigmas, long-forgotten memories and the venue – the Evangelische Akademie Frankfurt – from inside and outside.
The mediation work between the students and the client, the Evangelische Akademie Frankfurt, as well as the design-related implementation of the students with our experienced eye, combined with our demand for the content-related mediation of cultural topics.
The realisation of the students’ ideas and concept in collaboration with the editorial team, graphics and trades.
Project management, realisation, editing, communication
In fact, most people have approximately 13; after two and a half years, on average, they are revealed. Surprised? Well, we are too. Secrets are neither good nor bad, they can protect, connect us with each other and express trust, but they can also be exclusive and exclude. One thing became clear during the content processing of the topic: it is ambivalent, this world of secrets. In April 2021, architecture students from Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences began to deal with the topic of transparency as part of a competition. The students Ceren Isbillir and Milena Sommer won the competition, which gave them the opportunity to realise their project in Frankfurt's city centre.
"We worked intensively with the students for a semester to turn a student design into a viable production. In the process, we supported the students with tricky decisions and necessary reality checks. As a student, I would have been thrilled to be involved in such a project."
Sebastian Hahn
Project management
In terms of content, the glass building spanned an arc on the subject of transparency and secrets; while the walls served as a space for the exhibition tour.
Large wall graphics with various typography made the different areas and the emerging narration perceptible. The “suction power” started in the entrance, the first catchwords led the visitors into the topic and up the stairs.
Through a labyrinth of transparent fabric panels, visitors sought their way to the whispering stations where secrets could be revealed, at least between them and the museum visitors – private and yet partly public.
The installation at the staircase also invited visitors to participate. In the “catching of voices”various questions were asked and answer options offered, which the visitors selected with stickers and thus made their opinions and experiences with secrets visible. At least some of them ...