Symposion – Ein Tischgespräch über die Kulturarbeit by Jana Vogt

Symposion – Ein Tischgespräch über die Kulturarbeit (“A round table about cultural work”) is the title of Jana Vogt’s thesis in Communication Design made at MSD – Münster School of Design in 2023.

The five people who speak in this symposium are mosaic-like assemblages. They are perspective rather than person. Catalysts who were allowed to “feed” on ten personally conducted interviews and ten literary and academic discussions from the field of cultural work.

Jana Vogt gave each of the different perspectives their own voice by using one of the nine styles of VARIANZ. Thus, the tone of the conversation varies and corresponds to the spoken word without creating disharmony or visual clutter.

The Aureum font by Anna Sing is used in initials, interjections and headlines. VARIANZ by Viktor Zumegen is used for subtitles, body text and footnotes.

Jana Vogt writes:

The symposium is a table talk, a playful exchange about the value of cultural work. It is a literary buffet of facts, personal hopes, and concerns of cultural workers. Coming from different places, yet sitting at the same table, those working in culture negotiate realities, share and listen, and feel a sense of belonging. Can this practice, and the feeling it creates for the fictional guests and readers, give rise to a better understanding and appreciation of the process behind cultural production? In my creative process, I combine ethnographic and creative methods. I have organised real voices from the cultural sector in a fictional way on paper and formulated prominent common demands and messages. The table setting is both an invitation and a call: to enter into conversation about what culture creates and what we could create together; to value the efforts it takes to cultivate occasions for encounter, for collective and sensual consumption.