Works of artistic research and performance, Kunsthalle Baden-Baden.
With contributions by: Michael Akstaller, Eva Borrmann, Urs Humpenöder, Laura Immler, Stephan Janitzky, Hannes Köpke, Julia Liedel and Maria Wang Kvalheim.
With impulse lectures and assistance by: Petra Dischinger, Justyna Kalbarczyk, Kunstverein St. Pauli, Florian Werner Production management: Veronika Wagner

Seven artists turn an Autobahn rest area into their living and production space. Over the course of ten days, they expose themselves to the place, collect, write, document, linger. From a 1960s bridge restaurant hovering above the highway, they stare at the Autobahn
cosmos, intervene, and connect with people who provide creative input. Their aim is to broaden their understanding of the peculiar environment they came upon. By being there together, individual questions combine into a collective interest, resulting in a multi perspective sketch of the rest area.

What is it like to stay in a place where staying is not intended for? How do space and participants interact at the rest area, how are people and infrastructure interwoven here? Seeing the rest area as a living monument of German history, what does it tell us about the land of automobility and its relationship to capitalized recreation?

Filtered and pre-sorted by the artists, the research results are now made publicly accessible in the format “Symposium Rest Area” in the rooms of the Kunsthalle Baden-Baden. At the symposium, the artists’ collection from the research period is on display in the form of performative sketches, works of documentation, texts, and fleeting explorations of space. During the four hours, the audience is invited to compare the various perspectives of the rest area, and look into their differences and parallels.

Beyond that “Symposium Rest Area” forms the basis for the project “wer rastet, kann auch in den himmel schauen” by Natalie Baudy, Maximilian Klas, Sophie Lichtenberg, David Moser and Thea Soti. In a subsequent three week rehearsal phase, the group will further work on the impressions shared at the symposium and adapt them into a performative room installation that will be shown at the exhibition “Conditions of a Necessity 2”.