Bauhaus Lab 2025 call for applications
May 5–July 31, 2025
Gropiusallee 38
06846 Dessau-Roßlau
Germany
Hours: Monday–Sunday 10am–5pm
T +49 340 6508250
service@bauhaus-dessau.de
In his 1963 autobiography, Richard Buckminster Fuller criticised the Bauhaus for only having concerned itself with ‘problems of modification of the surface of end products’, for never dealing with the installations hidden inside the building’s walls.
With more than 300 light bulbs installed throughout the building, the Bauhaus in 1926 resembled a glowing glass structure. Electric lighting was both a medium and a material, and served as a convenient device to conceal the infrastructures and flows of electricity. Furthermore, the proliferation of artificial light gave rise to radically new social conceptions of the relation between day and night, light and dark, and assigned darkness a place outside of what was considered modern and progressive.
At the Bauhaus, the light bulb itself became a model for the design of lighting fixtures; its technical form was considered the most radical expression of functionality. However, the radiant glass house was embedded in a global geography of interconnected players in the lighting and electricity industry, above all OSRAM and AEG. Taking Marianne Brandt’s classic pendant light with a two-zone glass sphere as its starting point, the Bauhaus Lab 2025 investigates the felectrical current from the bakelite switches to the cables and connections, to the power plants and infrastructures of power supply. The programme not only takes up Fuller’s critique, but also asks what the design of future lighting conditions might look like—a design that helps to contain the light pollution associated with ubiquitous brightness, and opens up new ways of interacting with darkness.
About the Bauhaus Lab
The Bauhaus Lab is a three-month research programme for scholars and practitioners in the fields of art, architecture, design, curating, and related disciplines. Participation is free of charge, and all participants are given 24/7 access to workspaces in the Bauhaus Building. Participants will also receive a daily allowance of 24 EUR. The programme includes field trips (within Germany/Europe); the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation will cover travel and accommodation costs for these excursions. Participants are expected to be present on site for the entire duration of the programme, to contribute to the collective research and to meet regularly with the programme organisers for follow-up and feedback. The programme will be conducted in English. The process of collective research will culminate in an exhibition presented in the Bauhaus Building as a contribution to the 2025/26 anniversary programme of the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation.
Call for applications
The Bauhaus Dessau Foundation welcomes applications for the programme. To apply, please send a CV, a portfolio, and a letter of interest (in English) to Dr Regina Bittner, head of the programme, by January 19, 2025: lab [at] bauhaus-dessau.de. All application documents should submitted as a single PDF file; documents with file sizes exceeding 10MB should best be shared via download link.
The selection process consists of two stages: First, an international jury will select a number of applications to be shortlisted; these candidates will then be invited to Zoom interviews with the programme team. Shortlisted candidates will be notified by February 1, 2025, and interviews will take place shortly thereafter.
Questions regarding the application and selection process, as well as the programme itself, can be directed to the email address mentioned above. We particularly welcome applications from candidates with profiles that have hitherto been marginalised in academic and cultural institutions of the global north. The Bauhaus Dessau Foundation endeavours to assist with visa formalities for applicants from outside the Schengen area.
The Bauhaus Dessau Foundation is a non-profit foundation under public law. It is institutionally funded by:
