This year, the festival’s guiding theme was “Active Positive” — an invitation to shape our shared environments consciously and optimistically, inspired by the concept of “open form” by architect-artist Oskar Hansen.

Hectic times, social division and retreat into private spheres often make public art feel distant — but Goldstücke 2025 did the opposite. It made art public, accessible, playful, and communal. With ten curated works spread across the city — between the Rathaus Buer, Goldbergpark, the Domplatte, the local museum and small interior spaces — the festival turned everyday urban corners into immersive light-art encounters.

Xenorama’s contribution: Light as Form and Memory

We as Xenorama exhibited our work, “Luminous Objects – Wireframe” and “Luminous Objects – Hommage”, in the Robinienhof Passage — bridging sculpture, light, and spatial presence.

Through these pieces, Xenorama emphasised light not just as illumination, but as material — as form, as sculpture, as ghost-architecture. In the dimly lit corridors of an urban passage, the works invited passersby to pause, reflect, re-see ordinary space under new conditions. It was a subtle but powerful reclaiming of city space as a site of artistic experience.

Walking through Buer at night during the festival felt like exploring a dream city — familiar buildings and streets revealed hidden textures in light. What would otherwise be a routine stroll became an encounter: a neon dragon in a church, a rotating luminous marble-track in a courtyard, projections dancing on walls, and the Luminous Objects Series, glowing quietly in passage windows.

Because the event is free and spread across public, everyday spaces — not hidden behind museum walls — Goldstücke 2025 made art accessible to those who might rarely visit galleries. This is what “Active Positive” can look like: a call to reclaim our shared urban environment, to imagine and live spaces differently, through art.