Kuratorische Kontaktzonen

The Grand Snail Tour projectby Urbane Künste Ruhr is the second stop in a research initiative covering a total of eight art spaces, art associations and initiatives in eastern and western 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, in various ways, shaped by processes of transformation. The focus is on an exchange of ideas regarding how they respond to social, spatial and structural changes, and what strategies they develop to address them.

It is Boulevard Gevelsberg. Mittelstraße, normally a shopping street, becomes, for three days, a makeshift conglomeration of the typical elements needed to make a town festival a town festival. As if one had witnessed this interplay countless times before, the arrangement in this town somehow still veers into discord. The Polish-German artist Janusz Hajduk-Gubalke recognised as early as 1989 that this small town is not easily deciphered. On a metal plate at Gevelsberg’s sculptural town emblem, the ‘Stadtharfe’, one finds the Sator Square: an enigmatic inscription from antiquity that can be read in several directions. 

When you arrive in Gevelsberg, you get the feeling that something is fraying here. This is because the West German town, with its population of just under 30,000, lies at the point where the Ruhr region begins to dissolve. The high density of the Ruhr region gives way here to a hilly landscape, and the area feels neither distinctly like the ‘Pott’ nor distinctly like the Bergisches Land. Gevelsberg is not on the main route, but can be reached from Dortmund in a short time by the Regional Express. The connections are good, even in the evenings. And so Gevelsberg’s double-track station forms part of the Ruhr Metropolis’s tightly-knit infrastructure, making it one of its 53 cities.

53

One of 53 and, at the same time, the 29th. This is not an actual administrative number, but rather a stop on a tour following a logic modelled on the shape of a snail’s shell: the Grand Snail Tour. A three-year spiral journey through the Ruhr region, visiting all the cities that make it up. Public spaces are transformed into temporary exhibition venues, and art is actively brought out into the regions. The project is initiated by Urbane Künste Ruhr.

Just as a snail’s shell grows from the inside out, the tour builds up from the periphery towards a central point. Starting in Xanten – in the west of the Ruhr region – it first moves northwards, then heads east, and finally heads south. This rotational pattern continues until it reaches Herne. However, Herne – number 53 on the route – is by no means the declared destination, nor is it the ‘final’ stop. On the Grand Snail Tour, every stop is given equal attention. In a metropolitan region with five million inhabitants, there are many voices ,and so the Grand Snail Tour reveals alternative perspectives on the superstructure of a region shaped by coal mining and the steel industry – a legacy that continues to define its identity to this day. 

What you see when you don’t go straight ahead

How does one interpret a region’s perspectives and trends? To understand a region’s developments, it is wise not to adopt a linear perspective, but to move in meandering paths. This is how transformation can be understood. In three years’ time, change will become apparent. Not just structurally. Election results, the political mood and the accompanying social shifts will also be felt. Following the principle of circular movements, one repeatedly finds oneself in the vicinity of a region previously visited. In this way, differences from place to place over time can also be recognised. Time is a factor of no small significance here. In a three-year project, the pace is comparatively slow compared with regular exhibition cycles, butit is not rigid.

When mobility becomes the starting point, the question of the form it should take inevitably becomes a challenge. How can an exhibition space travel? The answer was found in a market trailer, which was adapted for the project. The stops take place every two weeks, usually on Thursdays. They are planned four to six months in advance. A curatorial role was created specifically for this task, which is held by Julian Rauter. The venues, local participants and the programme for each stop are carefully selected by the team – not least for administrative reasons. At the same time, circumstances can change, even spontaneously. Coping with this is part of the project and is perhaps even what it is secretly all about.

The Grand Snail Tour is therefore also the result of a shift in thinking about how we organise exhibitions. The individual stops are designed as processes. This allows us to adapt to changes and respond to the unexpected, says Britta Peters, artistic director of Urbane Künste Ruhr. By remaining more adaptable and removing the time pressure that often dictates the creation of exhibitions, more granular and nuanced formats emerge, which simultaneously challenge us to continually re-examine and reassess our own work.

A tour within a tour

To arrive, one must first set off. That is why the day in Gevelsberg is being rewound. For the Grand Snail Tour, it begins around 15 kilometres further north. 

The starting point is Sprockhövel, stop number 28. The connecting element – and at the same time the day’s actual artistic intervention – is a walk with the Cologne-based artist Boris Sievert. From Sprockhövel, the day trip winds its way through the region. It follows the traces of transformations that have become inscribed in the architecture, infrastructure and the realities of the residents. Starting in the countryside, the route leads past industrial landscapes and right through the city. Since 2000 , through his ‘Office for City Trips’, he has been offering so-called package tours to places that can just as easily be read as non-places. His travel agency exists less as a shopfront and more as a practice.

Meanwhile in Gevelsberg: A team of around six people is setting up the trailer, which has been delivered by lorry. The setup is completed within an hour in a car park within a park on the banks of the Ennepe. Everything needed has been brought along. Toilets are available at a nearby kebab shop. Works by Cem A. and Cosima von Bonin have been brought along. The selection of works from the collection’s storage facility in Bochum does not follow any fixed order, but is decided anew at each stop.

Some of Cosima von Bonin’s 7,000 palm trees are therefore fluttering by the trailer today. Stop signs by Cem A. are set up around the trailer. They encourage people to stop, but at the same time pose art-related questions or make statements; perhaps also serving as a point of contact between the public and the decentralised art institution. The question remains deliberately ambiguous: who, actually, is the public? Who does public space belong to? In Gevelsberg, this quickly becomes clear: the children.

The car park doubles as a basketball court. Children are drawn to the trailer, not least because of the colouring books by the artist Stefan Marx, which were designed specifically for the Grand Snail Tourcollection . At each stop, there are posters which have been placed in a poster stand and can be taken away. A live performance set is provided by the DJ and live duo Kerima & normalmap, aka Jana Kerima Stolzer and Lex Rütten. They play throughout the entire duration of the event. The afternoon begins in a relaxing atmosphere and ends in the same way. The highlight is the arrival of the hiking group. Massage chairs are provided for the hikers – not as artistic objects, but as purely practical aids to recovery.

Returning

The project’s long-term nature also highlights how such movements can be documented at all. It is about nuances that are particularly significant within a movement and could easily be lost. To this end, the project works with chroniclers. The artist and author Yevgenia Belorusets was invited to contribute to Stations 28 and 29. The chronicle takes the form of a guest contribution: an additional, parallel perspective on the events on site, but also on the project itself. 

Once all the stops have been visited after three years, there will be an exhibition. It will be interesting to see how the experiences of these three years are reflected in it, and how these experiences, in turn, shape the form of the exhibition. After that, the journey could well begin anew in Xanten. For after three years, much will have changed. 

The Grand Snail Tour winds its way through a region where, with Manifesta 16 Ruhr and the Ruhrtriennale 2026, international exhibitions are taking place that are dedicated to the social, spatial and economic realities of the Ruhr region. Urbane Künste Ruhr, for its part, emerged from the legacy of the European Capital of Culture Ruhr.2010.

https://www.urbanekuensteruhr.de/
https://www.urbanekuensteruhr.de/grand-snail-tour

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