HAVE A SEAT!
The Park Bench as Social Sculpture

There are 19,884 benches in Vienna‘s parks. The city’s streets and public transit stops offer  numerous additional opportunities for sitting. They seem like the  perfect expression of Viennese Gemütlichkeit: an invitation to rest, linger, and observe. 

But benches are also instruments of social order. They structure public space, especially through the increasing presence of „hostile design“ – an approach to urban planning that seeks to prevent undesirable uses such as spending entire nights on park benches.  
For the exhibition „Have a Seat! The Park Bench as Social  Sculpture,“ artists were invited to explore Vienna‘s street furniture. 

The park bench becomes a photo motif, an installation object, and a chance for visitors to have a seat themselves. The results are inter­ventions in an urgent debate: who owns and controls public space?

Artists: Aurianne Chevandier & Gerd Sulzenbacher, Iklim Doğan, mirabella paidamwoyo* dziruni, Anna Jermolaewa, Leopold Kessler, Moritz Matschke, Anastasiya Yarovenko