Residence

With our second exhibition RESIDENCE we dedicate ourselves to Karlsruhe. As FAN Collective we got to know each other in Karlsruhe through our joint studies and here we joined forces.

We struggle with the city and we love it. As designers, we experience this city—whether voluntarily or not—with an observing gaze, everything gets absorbed, analysed—the city shapes us and we shape the city. We deal with it intensively, work and live here and help shape it, too. We think Karlsruhe has an enormous advantage over other cities: it is underestimated. On a federal level, it is more of a grey mouse, mediocre in the 300.000 inhabitant range, a bureaucratic city, a police domain: people may talk about the Federal Constitutional Court, the ZKM, perhaps about the castle. In short: not exactly the go-to place for young creative people.

But the impression is deceptive: Karlsruhe is booming, multicultural, you are immediately in its surrounding nature, by the lake, there is a bubbling subculture and, above all, the opportunity to get something up and running. We are fans of Karlsruhe, although, or perhaps because we only know it as a large construction site.

With the exhibition RESIDENCE we wanted to give something back to the city—an ode to Karlsruhe. Various positions on the theme of Karlsruhe, where we live, were exhibited together in the Villa Gellert and formed the second exhibition of FAN Collective.