Eberbach Monastery starts the PLAYMOBIL World tour - staged by Diorama Artist Oliver Schaffer - with its own monk figure
Around the globe - for tolerance and charity! Over 5,000 small play figures and 100,000 colorful pieces: The next interactive family exhibition is currently running in Eberbach Monastery. From November 25, 2023 to January 12, 2025, the cultural monument in the Rheingau invites visitors on a PLAYMOBIL World tour, staged by Hamburg artist and "Diorama Artist" Oliver Schaffer and rounded off with a specially developed monk figure.
16 exhibition landscapes, some up to 30 square meters in size, hands-on stations, a play corner, a knowledge rally: for the exciting discovery tour, the rooms of the former abbey museum are transformed into a colourful world of experience, showing scenes in Australia, the Arctic Circle or the South Seas as well as wild Viking voyages or a Greek excavation site. Here, believers of different religions live peacefully side by side, going to the mosque, a synagogue, an Indian temple or the church in the Rheingau.
Where better to tell this story than at Eberbach Monastery? A place where the door has been open for centuries, whether for travelers or the sick, whether for those seeking meaning or those stranded. To this day, the Cistercian motto "Porta patet, cor magis" ("Our door is open, our heart even more so") stands for the goals and hospitality of the monastery and its foundation.
With this format, we want to appeal to guests of all generations and faiths and thus also set an example for tolerance, charity and the diversity of cultures," says Julius Wagner, Chairman of the Board of the Eberbach Monastery Foundation. "Promoting and communicating these values and this openness to the world are at the heart of our daily work as a foundation, in keeping with our tradition as a former Cistercian abbey founded by Bernhard von Clairvaux in 1136!
Especially in times like these, the communication of values and the will to build bridges are important drivers to keep us together as a society," says Priska Hinz, Hessian Environment Minister and Chair of the Foundation's Board of Trustees. "We are delighted to see how the foundation is positioning itself here, living up to the mission we have given it as the state of Hesse and managing to send a signal for peace and international understanding across generations in a playful way.
Following the great success of the first PLAYMOBIL family exhibition "Klostergeschichte(n)" in 2021 and the illusion show VERTRICKST! it is the third exhibition to be realized by the Eberbach Monastery Foundation. Together with the Horst Brandstätter Group, a PLAYMOBIL monk in typical Cistercian garb was developed together with a boar. "Brother Martin" is named after Abbot Martin Ryfflinck, who shaped the monastery during his tenure (1498-1506) with his erudition and sense of innovation.
Diorama artist Oliver Schaffer, for whom this is his second collaboration with Eberbach Monastery, is also particularly pleased. "I am proud and happy to be on board again for this special journey to the continents and life forms. For me, all exhibitions are always about the context, the concept that supports my ideas. The foundation's flexibility and creativity have led to a great result."
Oliver Schaffer was supported by an international creative team, such as the photo artist Adrián Limón Rivera (Mexico) and Daniel Andreas Arellano Mesina (Barcelona).
