“consum” is a project of Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen, which is thus hosted for the first time at the Kunstverein Friedrichshafen. The conception and realization of the project lie with the art scholars and curators Jörg and Karen van den Berg, together with students of the Applied Communication and Cultural Studies program at Zeppelin University (Anna Betzlbacher, Nadine Hoser, Alexa Hüni, Katrin Januszewski, Anne Jordan, Martin Kemter, Annelies Peiner, Caroline Schäufele, Hanna Steinmetz, and Alexandra Vogels).

Zeppelin University sees itself as an institution situated between business, culture, and politics—where the “between” stands, among other things, for multidisciplinarity in teaching and research, which will also be reflected in the cooperation with the Kunstverein. The project »consum« is furthermore part of a program at Zeppelin University with which the university opens itself up to the city, namely the so-called “Citizen’s University.”

In the “classical” exhibition space of the Kunstverein, a temporary platform will be created for different stagings from art, literature, music, theory, and practice. Artists, scholars, sellers, and buyers come together here.

The project does not reduce consumption to the mere use of material goods and services for immediate need satisfaction. Consumption is more: a form of social exchange and communication. While the 1980s and 1990s were still marked by a hype around consumption, today we hear complaints everywhere about the profound shift in mood toward consumer refusal. The “I shop therefore I am” of the American artist Barbara Kruger seems to have lost its validity.

Also, in the operating system of art, numerous artists have made the boundaries between artist, artwork, and viewer permeable. Their artistic strategies of participation turn the viewer into an active participant, a sovereign actor in the context of the arts. The project “consum” will interweave the worlds of art and consumption and relate them to each other.