[In]operabilities

Whether it’s an opera house, a theatre or a concert hall, people gather in foyers around the world to get in the mood for the sensory experience of art. Yet the foyer is much more than just a place people pass through: it is a portal, a threshold between everyday life and art. Here, drinks, gossip and glamorous wardrobes do the rounds. Here, the audience itself takes centre stage. Yet what for some is a place of joyful rites of passage quickly becomes, for others, an insurmountable boundary, a barrier.

Under the motto “Access Open Enter,” 20 artists with diverse perceptual styles and artistic disciplines will come together in a two-week lab to develop ideas and prototypes for the accessible lobby of the future. Whether these take the form of experimental multisensory wayfinding systems, audiovisual intermission chimes, live-whispered artistic audio descriptions of audience members’ outfits, or barroom gossip interpreted in German Sign Language (DGS) will be revealed at the public showing on the last day of the lab. Come by, try out our ideas and prototypes, and chat with the artists in a relaxed, installation-like atmosphere.

Accessibility assistants and interpreters for German Sign Language and German will be on site. Service dogs are welcome.