Yue-Kong Pao Hall of Visual and Performing Arts, Purdue University, November 10 - 15, 2008

Marx Café is a temporary café in front of the Rueff Galleries in Pao Hall serving free coffee and offering flexible social spaces November 10 - 15, 2008. It was created by graduate students and faculty in the Division of Art and Design: Micah Bowers, Calvin Chen, Shannon McMullen, Aaron Nemec, Juan Obando, Sara Rockwell and Fabian Winkler.

What makes a dynamic social space? Marx Café is a temporary intervention with an experimental and imaginative approach. It is an invitation to the community in Pao Hall to use the space, to meet, drink coffee, study and think about every detail, feature and function that a permanent café in the same location might have. It is also an opportunity for us to observe the usage of this installation and to solicit concrete feedback about what such a café should be, specifically in a Department of Visual and Performing Arts. In this case then, failures just as much as successes will tell us something important about what constitutes a desirable social space – one that people return to frequently, inviting others to join them.

We have provided a guestbook and would appreciate any comments and thoughts visitors might have. This feedback will be extremely helpful for the VPA coffee shop committee (Helen Brown, Russ Jones, Otie Kilmer, Shannon McMullen (co-chair), Lisa Lee Peterson, Sally Wallace and Fabian Winkler (co-chair)) to determine the next steps toward the creation of a permanent coffee shop in Pao Hall.

We would like to thank Lisa Lee Peterson (Division of Art&Design) and David Sigman (Department of Visual and Performing Arts) for helping make this temporary café possible.

2018 Purdue University Electronic and Time-Based Art