Kunsthalle ohne Schwellen – An activity for people with special needs

Kunsthalle ohne Schwellen is a series of half-day workshops for people with disabilities and has been taking place in different spaces at Kunsthalle Basel for the last nine years. Several times a year, on selected days, we invite groups or individuals and their companions to experience the current exhibitions with us and get creative.

This year’s focus was P. Staff’s exhibition In Ekstase.
Two institutions visited the exhibition and were inspired to create their own sculptures and paintings. The atmospheric and unique world of P. Staff was discovered by around 30 participants. Inspired by the artwork Bloodheads (Kunsthalle Basel), they made their own clay moulds and poured blood red wax into them to create sculptural candles. The window paintings, which bathe their surroundings in blue light, echo the blue colour world of the film La Nuit Américaine.
From 8 to 13 August 2023, the resulting objects and paintings were on display in the foyer of Kunsthalle Basel.

In 2022 we welcomed four different institutions to discover the exhibition of Michael Armitage You, Who Are Still Alive. This year’s workshop was themed Telling Stories with Paintings. After we had explored the stories of Armitage’s large-scale paintings together, the 60 participants could get creative themselves. With the help of a unique printing technique, in which petals are transferred onto fabric with a rubber mallet, everyone created abstract flower worlds. Experimenting with flowers and fabric demonstrated how the material used influences the content of images.

In 2021, various institutions visited us to discover the group exhibition INFORMATION (Today) with us and not only create their logos, based on the artist Tobias Kaspar, but also to organize a sonorous concert. Based on the artwork Riddles (Jaws) by Marguerite Humeau, the participants reacted to each other with different sounds, constantly changing the rhythm, and creating a unique sound experience.

For more information or private requests, please get in touch with the Art Mediation Team:
+41 (0)61 206 99 09

The program Kunsthalle ohne Schwellen addresses individual people with disabilities and accompanying persons and groups from institutions.

In 2010 this workshop series won the Museumstern, a distinction awarded by the City of Basel to institutions that are actively committed to meeting the particular needs of disabled and elderly persons and creating opportunities for them to participate in museum activities.