In the volunteer editorial team, Volunteers for Chemnitz 2025 publish reports on their experiences, assignments and adventures around the European Capital of Culture.
Bettina lives in Neukirchen in the Ore Mountains. Bettina has been a volunteer since 2024 and contributes her valuable voluntary experience to the European Capital of Culture gGmbH. A former bank clerk, she previously worked as a hardware and software developer.
During my stay at the Garagencampus, I met the Viennese artists Rainer Prohaska (innovator and founder of Futurama Lab), Kilian Jörg (philosopher) and Hanna Priemetzhofer, who are members of the FUTURAMA Lab collective. The project "THE CARS WE LIKE CHEMNITZ 2025" was created in the first week of July as part of the Capital of Culture year.
Rainer Prohaska is known for his unconventional, creative concepts that consistently involve the audience. In Chemnitz, he also pursued an interactive approach that not only invites participation, but also makes artistic processes tangible for everyone.
An experimental art project was created together with trainees from the VW engine plant in Chemnitz. The aim was to design humorous and sustainable chassis - using only existing materials such as ladders, tension belts, scaffolding parts and wooden beams. The focus on reuse not only made ecological thinking tangible, but also opened up new aesthetic scope.
Practical experimentation and joint tinkering led to the creation of imaginative, unexpected vehicles: a moving bathtub attached to a ladder and powered by two bicycles; rolling chairs on wooden planks; or a particularly comfortable "car" in the shape of a bed - embedded between scaffolding parts and ladders.
The trainees were able to contribute, test and develop their own ideas - with joy, creativity and a remarkable degree of design freedom.
In the end, all participants and visitors were able to marvel at the result of this unusual collaboration and experience for themselves how art can be a means of connecting communities and at the same time drawing attention to social issues, all in a humorous, joyful and light-hearted way.