dream.lab

The dream.lab by Brazilian artist Rivane Neuenschwander invites visitors to dream and participate. Neuenschwander created an immersive installation for the KinderKunstLabor exploring the theme of dreams and dreaming. In this first solo exhibition by the artist in Austria, elements are on display that were developed collaboratively with children from St. Pölten.

Rivane Neuenschwander created an area with organic forms that resembles a landscape, where space and artwork merge. Visitors can wander along their own paths through transforming colors, sounds, lighting, varied heights, and tactile materials. There is no fixed sequence, allowing for diverse aesthetic experiences and individual ways of engaging with the space.

Central Design Elements
A central design element in dream.lab consists of 41 rectangular wooden frames, covered with fabrics of different colors and patterns, roughly the size of duvet covers. Arranged like folding screens in both vertical and horizontal formats, the frames serve simultaneously as image carriers and partitions—visible from both sides—with the drawings worked on by the artist distributed throughout the space. Following Neuenschwander’s concepts, the children painted motifs on pillows—places where body and dream meet directly—and transferred them using lavender soap and engraved patterns.

In addition, the artist transformed motifs from other children’s drawings into black outline forms. Countless silhouettes are mounted on aluminum rods. Visitors can create shadow plays with the dream figures from the children’s drawings, making them appear large on the wall or small. Three stages made of unpainted folding screens along the exhibition walls also provide performance areas.

Active participation encouraged
In dream.lab, children and adults are invited to actively participate and intervene. For flashlights and other accessories such as pencils, transparencies, paper, and scissors, the artist designed three large wooden tables with drawers and side holders. One table incorporates a xylophone in the center of its surface, allowing self-generated sequences of sounds to accompany the activities. The children can also draw with chalk on large wall surfaces painted with blackboard paint along the three walls. A centrally placed overhead projector in front of one of the colorfully designed folding screens allows them to create new images using transparencies, their own drawings, and outline forms. Together with all other elements—the pillows, lighting effects, chalk drawings, and sounds—this creates an artistic laboratory for dreaming.

Participatory artistic exhibition format
Through these profound conceptual approaches, which integrate psychoanalytic aspects, Rivane Neuenschwander enriches the spectrum of participatory artistic exhibition formats with dream.lab at the KinderKunstLabor. Children and their accompanying adults are part of an exhibition of the highest aesthetic quality, which only becomes a complete work through their interactions. It is worth closing your eyes for a moment to dream yourself.

Since 2023, Rivane Neuenschwander has been preparing the project in collaboration with children from St. Pölten—working with children’s advisory groups and the Art Ideas Workshop. In autumn 2023, the process officially began with her, and afterwards the children’s groups continued to explore the theme of dreams and dreaming in sensory and artistic ways. Rivane Neuenschwander developed workshop concepts for dream.lab, which were tested and adapted with the children in the KinderKunstLabor. The resulting artifacts were further worked on by the artist and translated into her contemporary visual language.