The Spirits We Summoned... is a collaborative project by students at the Mainz Academy of Fine Arts, conceived as an artistic and experimental exploration of Sigmar Polke's Athanor installation - in particular his photographic work created in the run-up to the project and the resulting publication. At its heart lies a conscious reflection and dreaming about spaces: their history, their peculiarities, their possible future. Can we connect with spaces artistically and make them tangible?
The Spirits We Summoned…
The Spirits We Summoned…
(...) To start with, there wasn't very much: nothingness, the impalpable, the virtually immaterial; extension, the external, what is external to us, what we move about in themidst of, our ambient milieu, the space around us.
As the result of a seminar at the Mainz Academy of Fine Arts, led by Berit Schneidereit, the students are developing a collaborative exhibition for the Rundgang and a zine (print and digital)—serving both as an artistic format and as a medium linking the starting point and the final outcome. The exhibition will feature newly created works that highlight the students’ individual artistic approaches while also utilizing the medium of photography as a space for reflection and a tool for insight.
The Spirits We Summoned…
Exhibtion and launch of zine, 03–05 July 2026, 11 am–9 pm
Bungalow exhibition space, Mainz Academy of Fine Arts
Opening: 02 July, 2026, 6 pm
Participating artists: Okan Alcay, Yawei Chen, Leonie Depping, Alime Ertürk, Hannah Glaser, Clara Jacobs, Kora Riecken, Daiaana Sergucheva, Hitomi Shimokubo, Helin Zengin
Graphic design: Tim Bauer und Fabian Bähner
Organized by Berit Schneidereit