"Fragments of Leipzig" - Visual Ethnographies in Urban Space
About the exhibition
The exhibition “Fragments of Leipzig - Visual Ethnographies in Urban Space” presents visual, auditory and material approaches to Leipzig's urban space. It is the result of a research-oriented teaching project of the Institute of Anthropology at Leipzig University in the summer semester 2025, focusing on social and cultural anthropological research methods and their theoretical positioning. The aim of the project is to make student research visible and accessible in a public space.
Creating the exhibition
In their class the students were introduced to various methods of ethnographic field research - including participant observation, interviews and (audio-)visual methods - as well as a historical contextualisation of ethnological knowledge production. Using this theoretical and methodological background they developed their own research questions between April and July 2025 and implemented them empirically. Transferring the collected knowledge into an exhibition was the focus of the second project phase.
The exhibition transforms their ethnographic research into a tangible, sensually accessible form as well as making it visible to a wider publich, outside an academic context. Through this a “Späti” becomes a place of encounter: the usual shelves and sales areas are transformed into carriers of images, texts, maps, objects, drawings, found objects and media fragments. Each exhibit is related to an individual research process and is linked to further content such as audio and video sequences, narratives and interviews via QR codes. In this way, a dynamic inventory of ethnographic perspectives on Leipzig's urban space is created.
Can a “Späti” be an exhibition hall?
The choice of “Spätverkauf” as an exhibition venue is a deliberate one: Fragments of Leipzig does not take place in the white cube of a gallery or in the institutional framework of a museum, but in an everyday, public space. The “Späti” stands as an example of accessibility, social mixing and informal encounters - attributes that are often lacking in established art and academic contexts. By transferring ethnographic research and artistic dialogue to this space, the aim is to break down existing mechanisms of exclusion. Science and art do not appear here as abstract, distanced systems, but as approachable, context-specific practices that emerge from the neighbourhood which echo back into it. In this way, a space is created in which knowledge production is not only observable but can be actively shaped.
Fragments of Leipzig is no closed archive, but a living knowledge space - a processual memory of ethnographic practice. The new “Späti” inventory is a collection of different questions, narratives and perspectives in Leipzig. However, it is not just about collecting and preserving, but also about sharing, learning and exchanging lived knowledge with the neighbourhood. The exhibition invites visitors to understand urban spaces as a dynamic structure of meanings - fragmentary, contradictory and polyphonic. This exhibition is a place for encounters, irritation and joint further thinking is created - both within and outside the academic sphere.
