Gallery Am Fluss- Bad Ischl

University of Applied Arts Vienna: DEMEDARTS exhibition will open on June 25th. Opened in 2023 in the AM FLUSS gallery in Bad Ischl

"The Ischler Esplanade is a metropolitan boulevard that runs straight through the loveliest Alpine valley. On this beautiful riverbank road on the Traunstrom [...] the natural charms of the mountain landscape only form the background for a colorful cosmopolitan cityscape full of happy life. [...] below, however, a bustling crowd of city dwellers swaying back and forth, chatting and flirting, laughing and gossip, gossiping and raving ... as if the noisy residential life with all its whirling mobility had suddenly broken into the middle of the solemn silence of the mountains." (Blumenthal 1910, 118; source:https://www.stifterhaus.at/stichwoerter/bad-ischl)

How would you transfer the whirling mobility to today? The DEMEDARTS exhibition is dedicated to this topic. The older residents of Bad Ischl should also feel and move, self-determined and respected, not only ON the river but IN the river, also by the young.

If on Sunday 25.6. When the DEMEDARTS exhibition opens in the AM FLUSS gallery in Bad Ischl in 2023 at 11 a.m., the focus will definitely be on living with dementia. The aim of the artistic research project, which is funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF - PEEK AR-609 - is to create empathy within our society for people with dementia. “Artistic research starts here and creates art and design formats that stimulate thought. The DEMEDARTS exhibition shows the process of the work of the research team and also the students, who have brought this topic to schools in a wide variety of ways through their teaching concepts. And it is currently the only artistic format in the world to also deal with this topic with younger population groups," explains Ruth Mateus-Berr, project manager, herself an artist and designer and head of the Center for Didactics for Art and Interdisciplinary Teaching at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.

Design for rollators as an example

Why shouldn't rollators be provided with a quote from Thonet, the Campana brothers, a Max Bill or other design greats? Why shouldn't rollators remind users of their hobbies in a haptic, visual and olfactory way? Have a connection to the Salzkammergut or other places? “The exhibits shown in the exhibition represent examples of critical design to demonstrate the flaw in the design of - in this case rollators - used by a large and ever-growing target group. In this way, the right to self-determined and self-confident aesthetics is demanded and aging is shown with its funny, funny and crazy appearances," Mateus-Berr explains the motif and background. The show also includes interactive tools that can be used by people with and without dementia.