Raul Walch makes shapes and lines dance in the air in Marl with color and lightness. In the installation UNITE! developed for Marl, he stretches a multi-part sail on the terrace of the Skulpturenmuseum Marl and hoists colorful flags in the neighboring schoolyard, which he previously developed together with students from the Martin Luther King School. The installation will be officially opened by Claudia Schwidrik-Grebe, Head of Cultural Affairs for the City of Marl, on June 9, 2024 as part of this year's museum summer festival and will run until July 7, 2024.

With the title UNITE!, Raul Walch not only calls for intergenerational encounters, but also reveals the special development of the installation: In a workshop format lasting several weeks, around 100 pupils were able to go on a personal search for clues with the Berlin artist. Questions about the everyday paths, forms and textures of the young people of Marl determined the investigation - how are communal spaces shaped by their fellow human beings? What traces do they leave behind and how do they form a collective commonality despite personal stories? The shapes and patterns developed by the students can now be seen in the design of Raul Walch's textile works in the schoolyard.

The source material for his airy installation are decommissioned parachutes from the Verein für Fallschirmsport Marl e.V..

The UNITE! installation marks the space between the museum and the school as a place where people can come together and actively shape the community. Over the summer months, it now also represents a visual connection between the Skulpturenmuseum and the neighboring school, which has been growing steadily since the museum's temporary relocation in April 2022.

Raul Walch studied sculpture at the Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weißensee and with Ólafur Elíasson at the Institute for Spatial Experiments at the Berlin University of the Arts. His work combines the artistic (re)design of familiar objects borrowed from everyday life with the idea of community-based collaboration. He lives and works in Berlin.

The two-part installation UNITE! is part of the Stadtbesetzung program of the Kultursekretariat NRW Gütersloh and is funded by the Ministerium für Kultur und Wissenschaft des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen.