“Pool People” explores the past, present and possible future of outdoor swimming pools as places of democratic negotiation and diversity. In August 2026, the “Michi” (Michaelibad), Munich’s largest outdoor swimming pool, will host a three-part art project: a performance, an underwater sound installation, and a pool party.
Artistically, the question posed is: What does this swimming pool, which opened in 1955, represent? Who swims laps here? Who jumps from the diving board? Who nabs whose spot on the sun lounger? The pool is a place where people, where bodies come together, encounter each other and negotiate shared space between the pool and the sunbathing lawn. Sometimes quietly, sometimes loudly, sometimes with glances, sometimes with gestures.
The preceding artistic research incorporates both an examination of historical themes relating to Munich’s public baths and contemporary negotiating processes that determine how people interact in the baths. Archival research and conversations with historians and sociologists are supplemented by interviews with bathers amidst the water slide, diving board and kiosk.
Directed by Christiane Huber, the opening performance brings together performers, teenage bathers, and members of Munich’s theater youth club scene to talk about the outdoor pool as it is in summer 2026, as well as how it once was and what it might be in the future.
For the immersive underwater sound installation, Christiane Huber and composer Nadia Botello explore the auditory space of the “Michi” based on interviews with bathers and the sound of the pool.
The concluding pool party will culminate in the unveiling of a sculpture by Robert Keil, which will remain in the pool area, inviting interaction and communal use.
Christiane Huber, born in 1973, lives and works in Munich.
