Maja Mittelstädt
Robin Alexa Karg
Yara Held
Max Mittelstädt
Nico Schulz
What are things worth? And how many things do we need? These questions are explored by the “Minimalism Lab - Lab of Things“, a project that invited visitors to the Sziget Festival 2025 in Budapest to reflect on overconsumption, ownership and the value of things through interactive stations.
Discover the Lab of Things - an interactive space for reflecting on overconsumption and embracing conscious choices, decluttering and responsible consumption.
The project was initiated by Maja Mittelstädt, Yara Held, Max Mittelstädt and Nico Schulz, Students and graduates of the Interactive Media Design programme (B.A.), and Robin Alexa Karg, Graduate in Business Administration M.Sc. with a focus on New Media Marketing at the University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt. The project is part of a successful application to the Sziget Changemakers programme, which supports young teams from Europe who develop creative responses to social and environmental challenges with innovative ideas. At the six-day music festival on Donau Island in the heart of Budapest, six different teams presented their projects over two days each. With over 400,000 visitors, the festival provided a huge platform for raising awareness of socio-political issues.
The Lab of Things focuses on approaching the Sustainable Development Goal 12: Responsible Consumption and Production of the United Nations. The aim is to bring this SDG to life and make its relevance to people's everyday lives visible. In addition, a dialogue on overconsumption is to be initiated. Festival visitors are invited to reflect on their personal relationship with ownership and consumption by actively engaging with interactive tasks and questions. In the best case scenario, new perspectives for responsible consumer behaviour emerge, combined with the joy of decluttering and the motivation to act sustainably.
The exchange station attracted large crowds: based on the game principle of “apple and egg“, festival visitors exchanged one item for the next - each one increasingly “valuable“. What began with a simple apple eventually turned into a massage device after numerous exchanges. It was an exciting experiment that sparked conversations about the value we attribute to things depending on the context.
A particular eye-catcher was the string wall at the stand, which filled up over the course of the festival like a living network with numerous personal sketches and drawings. From surfboards to mobile phones: visitors were asked to visualise their most valuable possession. They could rest at the drawing table, get creative and start conversations.
Another station was the guessing box, filled with numerous everyday objects. Festival visitors were invited to guess how many items were in this small box. The box served as a comparison: if so many objects can fit into such a small space, how many unused items are piling up in a room or even an entire house?
There were also exciting discussions at the table with curated everyday objects ranging from a toothbrush and a watch to a cuddly toy. The participants used red and blue stickers to mark the three things they would rescue from a burning house in an emergency or take with them to a desert island. Gradually, a collective map emerged that visualised the personal values, priorities and different meanings of everyday objects for festival visitors.
AAt the end of the festival, visitors themselves decided which of the six projects they found most compelling. The Lab of Things reached over 570 people on 10 and 11 August, demonstrating the high level of interest in the topics of overconsumption and sustainability. In addition, the Lab of Things received the most votes and emerged as the winner of this year's Sziget Changemakers Programme 2025. This gives the team the opportunity to visit the Sziget Festival again next year.