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Review of exhibitions

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​​​​​​​​Furniture Design 2026​​

April 13, 2026, through August 30, 2026


This year’s “Furniture Design” exhibition at the Peter Behrens School of Arts showcased impressive and diverse designs. This year's challenge was to design a two-seater. 
The pieces were created in the “Furniture Design WS 25/26” seminar and crafted by third-semester students.

​​​​The Beauty and The Beast

May 4 through June 15, 2026

As part of Freedom of Speech Week, the exhibition “The Beauty and the Beast,” featuring photographic works by Prof. Mareike Foecking from the Photography Photography Department of the School of Design, was on display at the University Library.

In the various adaptations, reinterpretations, and film versions of the fairy tale “Beauty and the Beast,” there are numerous images and metaphors that offer poetic insights into questions regarding the meaning of knowledge, subjectively experienced reality, and perception:

The importance of knowledge; traditional female roles as limitations on one’s ability to act; memory that is erased and regained; the unknown as a threat and beauty as an acceptable norm; an unobstructed view of the world versus one filtered through a medium; and self-reflection, connection, and love. Many of the themes addressed are being reexamined today in the context of technology.

Are the development, possibilities, and promises of rapidly advancing AI “The Beauty” or “The Beast”? Must we love it, question it, connect with it, or gaze at ourselves in the mirror alongside it?

With the easily accessible AI text and image generators, new questions arise about truth and reality, representation and self-image, the authority to interpret and the meaning of knowledge, but also about love, beauty, and style. 

The exhibition consists of various series that have developed images addressing these questions through exploratory and poetic artistic works, thereby shedding light on some of the methods used in AI image generation.


    Do the pictures show what the text says? 

What happens when words disappear - do the images disappear as well, and if the images disappear, how do the conditions that the images and words described change? Can you judge a book by its cover, or how might the content change as book covers change? Are AI texts contextualized within an academic framework automatically credible, or do they reproduce statements that appear meaningful but are actually generic and function like clichés? And is it possible, based on AI-generated images that offer a glimpse into how machines work, to draw conclusions about how machines handle words and texts?

The exhibition invites visitors to ask themselves these questions together and discuss them.

​​​​"Samudaripe – Remembering the Roma"

January 27, 2026 – February 5, 2026

To mark this year’s Day of Remembrance for the Victims of National Socialism, the International Roma Culture and Sports Association Carmen e.V., in cooperation with Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences, the Department of Social and Cultural Studies, and the Alter Schlachthof Memorial Site, presented the exhibition “Samudaripe – Roma Remember“.
 
Through photographs and text, the exhibition recounted the family memories of Roma from the Balkans regarding the Nazi injustices committed against their ancestors during
the occupation of Yugoslavia by the German Wehrmacht and its allies
from 1941 to 1945.​​

„Offering Refuge – Hoping Together“​​​​

June 25, 2025 – July 18, 2025 
 
The traveling exhibition used words and images to portray the perspectives of refugees who have been or are currently seeking sanctuary in churches. It focuses on the stories and experiences of individuals and families. The exhibition focuses on people who tell their stories of loss of rights, flight, and escape, presenting them as active participants in their own narratives. It also provides information on the practice of church asylum, featuring quotes from individuals involved in church asylum work.

The exhibition was developed and organized by volunteers involved in church asylum work. The portrait photos were taken by an Iranian artist.

The exhibition was presented in collaboration with Prof. Susanne Spindler and Sahra Kamali..​
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​​Exhibition Furniture Construction 2025

10 March 2025 - 13 June 20255

5 wooden sticks + 1 plywood panel​​​
The exhibition ‘Furniture Construction’ by the Peter Behrens School of Arts from 2025 in the University Library showed that impressive and diverse designs can be created from this small amount of material.

An independent, functional piece of seating furniture was to be developed from a plywood panel and a maximum of five wooden rods of 1.5 m birch wood that did not exceed the dimensions L500 mm x W500 mm x H850 mm. The material was to be used efficiently and the natural surface of the wood was to be retained..

The workpieces were created in the seminar “Furniture Design WS 24/25” and were made by 3rd semester students..​​​​


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​Breaking Barriers : Breaking barriers with​ art

4 July 2024 - 19 August 2024

The exhibition “Breaking Barriers: Breaking Barriers with Art” showed a total of 16 exhibits by three female student artists with disabilities. The exhibition is part of the first Disability Pride Day, which was organized by the Disability Department of the AStA and the Incluversity Network HSD with the support of the Department of Social and Cultural Sciences and the Barrier-free Studies Office of Düsseldorf University of Applied Sciences.

The works of Amy Savage, Inga Hanke and Lea Bauer used a variety of artistic techniques and approaches to explore personal themes such as identiy, emotion, disability and creativity. Audio descriptions of the images and information on the meaning of the images were available vie QR code at the exhibits.


​Exhibition Furniture construction 2024

25 March 2024 - 23 June 2024

The exhibition features around 130 stools designed by students from the 3rd semester of the Furniture Construction course in the Department of Architecture at the Peter Behrens School of Arts.

With the material mix of composite wood and broomsticks, the students were faced with a special challenge, whose creative solutions were on display in the University Library.