Category: Religion

The exhibition project “Nichts. Nothing. Riens.” takes on nothing. It casts a light on the small things in life that we otherwise hardly notice. While we normally are concerned with the act of filling, being constantly busy and pursuing something more, this exhibition is an unusual experience of the opposite. A particular challenge for gewerkdesign was to conceive and implement the nothing spatially as well as graphically.

Objects, stories, films, illusionary spaces, waiting rooms, and moments of surprise are associated with the term “Nothing” by integrating everyday observations and situations into the exhibition space. As part of a broad-based research for the exhibition, the exhibits were compiled during a series of workshops and subsequently distributed across the six areas of the exhibition: 1. A Lot of Nothing, 2. The Waiting Room, 3. Nothing for You, 4. All this Nothing, 5. Constructing Nothing, 6. Cinema Stage.

The exhibition architecture is not visible at first glance. It aligns with the architecture of the museum, supplementing it with additional windows, pillars, and doors. A trilingual transponder invisibly and magically guides the visitors through the exhibition set, leading to a filmic show of actors staging bizarre encounters. The exhibition is designed to be sustainable. Its individual elements were economically produced, minimising the overall consumption of resources. Wall panelling, old wine crates, cardboard tubes were recycled from previous exhibitions. The graphics were mainly printed on paper in order to minimise the use of plastic and composite materials.

Our exhibition graphics show several solutions for the special challenge to represent the nothing in an image. Five motifs visualise the nothing that we concurrently bring into the space. In the motifs of our poster series, the nothing becomes visually tangible by staging that which surrounds the nothing: flying newspaper pages, an empty train platform, a staircase into the empty cosmos. In these images, a facet of the charming and probably typical Swiss humor becomes obvious. To say it with the words of the museum: “Is it possible that the nothing is not nothing? The exhibition Nothing goes all-in and shows apparent nothingness in an unusual exhibition. We invite you on a journey with wonderfully surprising encounters – a journey to nothing!”

At 62,000 visitors, the Museum for Communication Bern sets a record in visitor numbers with “Nichts. Nothing. Riens.”. As many people as never before at the MfK Bern have seen this special exhibition.

In the museum shop of the MfK Bern, our posters, a special edition in shape of a collector’s folder (both limited editions) as well as a card game on the topic are available (in German and French only).

Tasks / Range of Services
Workshop conception and content, exhibition design and exhibition architecture, exhibition and media graphics, communication design, production monitoring