documenta fifteen opens: Volkswagen supports sustainability goals as lead partner

Extending the services for documenta visitors, Volkswagen provides mobility solutions including the launch of a WeShare car fleet available throughout the 100 exhibition days. At a convenient click in an app, 35 Volkswagen ID.3 can be rented and left at any public parking spot within the operating area. More information can be found at www.we-share.io/. The EV charging network in Kassel will be expanded with 42 mobile and permanent charging stations, each powered by green energy from Städtische Werke AG, Kassel. To reach the exhibitions venues, visitors can also use the free bicycle rental service at the Volkswagen Mobility stand in the heart of Kassel which is equipped with 50 recycled bicycles.

In collaboration with Fraunhofer Institute, Volkswagen supports “citizenship,” a project by “Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik Berlin” (ZK/U). The artist group converted a former roof framing into a ship which then received a sustainable propulsion system based on the electric engine of a VW Golf III Citystromer. Trainees from the Volkswagen plant in Kassel helped during installation and activation of the system. Having departed in Berlin on June 2, the ship is currently on a 60-day journey via Wolfsburg to Kassel, where it is expected to arrive on July 22. Along the route, the ship stops at different locations to set the stage for cultural encounters with local artists. After its arrival in Kassel, citizenship is going to provide a platform for meetings between visitors and artists.

An invitation for the young generation to engage with modern art is made possible through 14,000 Art4All tickets for this year’s art exhibition, that documenta could distribute for the first time with the help of Volkswagen among young students throughout Hessen. It represents a next step in broadening the Art4All program after it had been successfully rolled out at Neue Nationalgalerie and Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin as well as at Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg. Partnerships are the key element of giving access to culture and the arts for as many people as possible.

As part of the public program at documenta fifteen, guests can attend free sound art workshops with Olaf Pyras, musician and lecturer at Kassel University, and musician Detlef Landeck, both providing insights on how musical art can be performed with the sound of car parts. At some performances attendees can also learn more about factory sounds and experience the vintage Volkswagen “Sound bus.” More information can be found at: www.soundorchestra.de.

Benita von Maltzahn, Head of Cultural Engagement at Volkswagen: “Together with the documenta fifteen team, we open the doors to culture and the arts for as many people as possible. And our sustainable mobility solutions provide visitors with fast and emission-free travel opportunities to the exhibition venues. We would like to wish all guests an interesting exchange with art at documenta fifteen

Dr. Sabine Schormann, CEO documenta and Museum Fridericianum gGmbH, underlines: “Volkswagen is a trusted partner with regard to our efforts in promoting the arts and cultural education as well as our mobility concepts. As documenta fifteen focuses on participation, we especially appreciate the opportunity to involve young students.”

Upholding the tradition of the world’s most influential exhibition in Kassel, documenta fifteen offers a multi-facetted program developed by the Indonesian artist collective ruangrupa. Covering 32 venues in and around the city of Kassel, it includes not only exhibitions but also workshops, performances, sound sessions, talks, readings and film presentations, which are all centered around the lumbung concept. Lumbung is a social and cultural practice known and common in the lives of the curators, and based on values like collectivity, resource conservation, humor, generosity, and equality. The partnership with documenta extends Volkswagen’s international engagement for culture and the arts, strengthening artists, institutions and projects around company sites and beyond. The activities are being carried out with the commitment to enable a wide audience to engage with creative work and ideas, creating opportunities to develop new perspectives for innovations and discourses.