It reads like a thriller: the minutes of the jury session for the art-in-architecture competition at TU Chemnitz. In 2023 seven artists had been invited to submit designs for a work of art next to the new building of the Electron Microscopy Centre:
Philipp Fritzsche (Leipzig), Jacqueline Knappe (Dresden), Candy Lenk (Berlin), Matthias Lehmann (Meissen), Frank Maibier (Chemnitz), Juliane Schmidt (Dresden) and I, Stefanie Welk (Heidelberg).
On 17 November 2023 I travelled to Chemnitz for the first time. There, in a colloquium, we artists learned details about the planned centre and its use. We were able to visit the future site and draw inspiration from it for our competition entries. Months of preparation followed, which passed far too quickly alongside the work for art KARLSRUHE.
On 8 February 2024 I finally drove to Dresden with the competition documents, to be submitted anonymously, and a model of my design, since everything had to be there in good time before the jury session. The jury itself met in Chemnitz.
On Monday, 26 February, the procedure began at 10 am. How I would have loved to be there secretly to witness the three intensive rounds of evaluation.
After the formalities, the first question was whether each work would receive at least one vote to remain in the competition. All designs cleared this hurdle.
The second round, after “a comprehensive, in-depth discussion directly at the works”, turned into a knockout round for the first candidates: this time the seven jury members had to decide for or against keeping each work in the competition. A simple majority decided.
One design received all 7 votes to remain. For three works the ratio for a further round was 6 votes in favour and 1 against. But for 3 works the competition already ended here.
Once again there was intense discussion. Two of the four remaining works cleared the next majority hurdle. The design that had originally had 7 supporters did not make it into the next round.
This led to the last, decisive vote. The designs were discussed intensively “further with regard to their conceptual approaches”. Then the chairman of the jury asked the all-important question: “Which of the two works should be chosen as the winner of the procedure?” Each of the seven jury members had one vote. So it was clear that there would be a winner in this round. A tie was not possible.
The vote ends with the following result
1004: 2 votes
1006: 5 votes
On the day of the jury session my phone rang at 1:09 pm. The last round of evaluation had just finished. It was a call from Chemnitz, which I missed – and only noticed in the afternoon. Excitedly I called back and learned: my work bore the number 1006 – I had won the competition!
The design of my sculpture IMPACT lived up to its title and impressed the jury.
Further information on the competition can be found in the press release in the media service of the Saxon State Chancellery: https://www.medienservice.sachsen.de/medien/news/1073701.
IMPACT has since been realised. I have described the path from model to finished work in the blog post “IMPACT – beyond the self-evident”.
A film about the making of IMPACT is in preparation and will be shown for the first time on the Open Studio day on 25 October in my studio at Robert-Bosch-Straße 52 in Walldorf. The Open Studio day begins at 2 pm. Admission is free. Registration is welcome!