Kuratorische Kontaktzonen

The Trafohaus Kassel is the first stop in a research project focusing on a total of eight art spaces, art associations and initiatives in East and West Germany, which precedes the ‘Dialogfelder’ and artistic residencies in 2027.

What these venues have in common is that they operate in communities and regions that are shaped in various ways by processes of transformation. The focus is on an exchange of views on how they respond to social, spatial and structural changes, and what strategies they develop to address them.

Transformation begins with tension. And tension refers to a state of transition – that is, the shift from an existing state to a new form. In this context, tension is not an event, but a ‘not-yet’. It is stored dynamis: a possibility, a potential.

Transformer stations were built to transform electrical voltage. The buildings that housed these stations are called transformer stations. As hubs of the electricity grid, they act as intermediaries between supra-regional energy supply and local consumption. They are small structures that must continually prove their worth anew, now that the demands on the energy infrastructure have changed. Their survival lies in their ability to transform themselves.

Transit point

The transformer house in Kassel is a remnant of technical modernism. A building that has lost its primary purpose. On one occasion, it even had to be saved from demolition. However, alongside its original function, the small building has taken on various forms of energy supply over the course of almost seventy years. It is as if it had foreseen that the moment would come when the technology would shrink and find a place next to the building in an inconspicuous compact substation.

In the tradition of distribution, it points to a remarkable continuity. Situated at a junction on Lutherplatz, between different neighbourhoods, the building serves as a hub. As a transit point, it conveyed not only electricity but also information: at times it was a newsagent’s, then a telephone box, or operated as a post office branch. Today, the Trafohaus continues this logic, albeit under different circumstances. It is a public hub for artistic, creative, architectural and urban-focused content. Today, the Trafohaus is a venue for publication. It is about the dissemination of knowledge, active dialogue and social exchange. The excitement today comes from artists, authors and researchers. 

Getting back online

Together with founding member Malene Saalmann, we spend a spring afternoon exploring the building. The Trafohaus was reactivated in 2019 by the Nutzungskonzepte e. V. association and thus reconnected to the grid. We’re sitting on the five steps that half-encircle the building. During the warmer months, events take place here in the outdoor area. The steps serve as both a stage and a grandstand. Behind us is the sales window originally intended for the sales area. There are no records of its actual operation. By 2019 at the latest, however, the kiosk was brought back into use by the association with the installation ‘Profikiosk’ (2019). And most recently as a weekly, regular meeting place as part of the ‘Mittwochskiosk’ (2024). It was advertised via the billboard walls integrated into the building, quite simply: ‘Wednesdays: kiosk books radio’.

Transformer stations often served as both advertising columns and billboard spaces; this was also the case with the Trafohaus in Kassel. In this way, the building engages with and integrates the outdoor space. The building thus acquires a constantly changing visual façade. The billboard walls can be transformed into a stage set for performances, readings and concerts.

Programme follows form

It goes without saying that the white, free-standing, single-storey building, with its straight surfaces and sweeping curves, has a strong influence on the programme. The Trafohaus continues to function as a transformer. To this end, it has long made use of the medium of radio. Live streaming can be envisaged on a decentralised basis. The radio station enables communication beyond local boundaries. A multilingual programme establishes a supra-regional connection. In episodes such as ‘God’s Word in Your Ear ’ and ‘On the Way to the Amusement Park’ with djfroggy69 & Malene, local stories are frequently placed within public narratives that extend beyond their immediate context.

Trafo.Radio broadcasts the ‘Trafo.Radio Listening Session’ on its website on two Wednesdays a month and every Sunday ;this is hosted at Mimikri, a project space designed to bring together Kassel’s music scene. The programme streams DJ sets that deliberately differ from traditional club formats, but there are also lecture performances in which guests present their current research topics. In its role as a social space, the Kiosk, for example, was once the subject of a radio show in collaboration with the University of Kassel. Or the focus might be on Kassel’s music scene of the 1980s. But some things only become clear when you’re there in person, says Malene. So we head to Bettenhausen.

Bettenhausen

After the fall of the Wall, Kassel became the geographical centre of the Federal Republic. That is why there is the Platz der Deutschen Einheit(German Unity Square), via which you reach Bettenhausen. The district seems like an archive of various promises of modernisation. Along the renaturalised River Losse, the village centre clashes with striking, industrial expanses. Here, the history of Kassel unfolds. The Salzmann site, where tents and sailcloth were manufactured, was once the epicentre of the textile industry . For the West German music scene, the place was a key point of reference , partly because of the Stammheim techno club , to which Trafo.Radio dedicated an episode last year. The complex was first used as an external venue for documenta 8 (1987) . Further editions of documenta followed in the industrial ruin.

Travel agency

The next day, we head back to the Trafohaus once more. This is because the Trafohaus was also a venue for documenta fifteen (2022). The global network Arts Collaboratory used the building as an editorial space. Networking, providing a platform for others and enabling participation are at the heart of the Trafohaus’s ethos. For the organisers, it is important to continually engage with the space and research its history further: “Documentation is also part of the Trafohaus’s practice.” That is why the Trafohaus also has a small bookbinding workshop and self-publishes books. They see publishing as a means of exchanging and preserving knowledge. As a self-organised cultural space, they operate using grassroots democratic working processes. This allows them the potential to evolve, remain dynamic and respond to change.

We shake a snow globe containing a miniature view of Wilhelmshöhe, bought from a souvenir shop, whilst we talk about the future of the Trafohaus. Perhaps one day it will become a travel agency.

https://trafo.haus/

Welcome, Kristina Miller

with Kristina Miller, we are delighted to welcome our first curator to Dialogfelder. Kristina’s work begins precisely where social change becomes visible, tangible and open to discussion: in spaces, milieus, images, routines and ruptures. We are lokking forward that her curatorial residency, Curatorial Contact Zones , will bring a new dimension to the project – an observant, questioning and connecting perspective that precedes the 2027 artist residencies.

Kristina Miller, born in 1992, lives and works as a curator in Berlin. In her practice, she engages with artistic positions that examine social dynamics, social orders and sociological phenomena. She is particularly interested in closed systems and spaces, decoupled milieus, and places where processes of social negotiation become particularly concentrated and visible.

Drawing on contemporary discourses characterised by radicalisation, the search for identity, uncertainty and resignation, she turns her attention to spaces and movements in which new forms of social reality are emerging. Kristina’s curatorial work combines analytical and academic research, biographical work, field research and the analysis of scene-specific visual languages. Between offline and online cultures, she is interested in the social mechanisms that intertwine analogue and digital realities. Her projects thus navigate the terrain between sociological observation, artistic translation and the question of how spaces shape our coexistence.

As part of the Dialogfelder project, Kristina Miller is visiting eight art spaces in Germany – four in eastern and four in western Germany, in both urban and peripheral regions. Her research explores how art spaces respond to social, spatial and structural processes of transformation, what strategies they develop in dealing with ruptures and change, and how new connections can emerge from this.

Kristina Miller studied sociology at the University of Vienna and Spatial Strategies at the Weißensee Academy of Art in Berlin. For her research work, she has been awarded, among other honours, the Research Grant from the Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion, Berlin. In collaboration with cross-media artists, she develops concepts, curatorial formats and texts. As a studio director, she has realised works and exhibitions of international scope, including in collaboration with the ZK/U – Centre for Art and Urbanism Berlin, the mumok – Museum of Modern Art Ludwig Foundation Vienna, documenta Kassel, and the bbk Berlin, and has recently returned from a curatorial fellowship at the Akademie Schloss Solitude.

www.kristinamiller.de