Marei Wollersberger (A) at the Vienna Augarten Porcelain Manufactory

The Vienna Augarten Porcelain Manufactory, with its almost 300-year history, is one of Vienna’s oldest factories still in existence that continues to produce handcrafted articles to this day. In her Passionswege project with Augarten, the designer Marei Wollersberger, originally from Graz and now working in Barcelona, has dedicated herself neither to the beautiful porcelain object nor to its traditional production. Instead, she has reformulated the manufactory’s concept into a type of future vision of an individual, even “therapeutic” service. In this vision, the future lies in custom-made items that should not only be aesthetically pleasing and functional, but also take social and psychological needs into account (accordingly, the Augarten would of course have to engage psychologists and sociologists). Using coffee house crockery as an example, Wollersberger demonstrates variations for individuals with diverse predispositions and presents by means of “rapid prototyping” possible coffee cups for misanthropes (people-haters) or for those with anthropophobia (fear of people), for example. In addition, there is also an “autobiographical service for shy people” (offering stimulation for discussion) on view. In an exemplary fashion, the individualized manufacture is so envisioned that it naturally suits the city of psychoanalysis just as much as the city of coffee house culture, and not without a dash of humour.