October
2nd–4th 
2024

Join us as we rediscover our streets for what they can be: a meeting point, a spectacle, an experience.

The street as a place for negotiation. A place for discussion. As a political space. Its tarmac surface lies at our disposal.

Over the course of 48 hours, we are provocatively transforming the “Büro der Rettung der Welt” (Bureau for the World’s Salvation, Annenstraße 20) into a laboratory, Zur Rettung der Straße–to save the street. We’re looking for contributions of all kinds that explore spatial interrelationships and the untapped potentials of the street's surface. From performances to installations, exhibitions, debates, or even film screenings, potentially everything is possible.

… Do something!

banale potenziale

The urban space acts as the daily intersection between private and public space. Our streets, squares and parks, bridges and tunnels, etc., are the places where we meet, where we interact, where we demonstrate and discuss, and where we work or share our free time with others. But do we really?

Our urban landscape tends to consist predominantly of clusters of disparate functions that may appear to exist alongside or behind one another but only rarely interact. Particularly striking within this segmented urban setting are the streets and their often formalistic compartmentalisation and barriers. Too often, they explicitly favour traffic constellations, but nevertheless, they inevitably form a spatial structure that merits further investigation.

We will be examining the unexplored, sometimes banal potential of the urban space in order to spark a renewed understanding and to recognise previously undiscovered opportunities. For 48 consecutive hours, we will put these potentials to the test–sometimes at close range, other times with the necessary distance. Nonstop, day and night.

Laboratory to save the street

In the laboratory, we will be developing our research framework and collecting theoretical contributions, research and debates relating to our theme of the ‘in-between’. This is also where we will be setting up our headquarters for the 48 hours of practical exploration and exhibiting the collection of texts and projects as a supporting programme.

Participation

We're looking for projects, participants and anyone who is critically engaged in the understanding and potential of urban spaces and would like to research and reflect with us! Whether it’s an activity, installation, object, performance, exhibition, screening, discussion, confrontation, etc., contributions of any kind are welcome. These may be both existing projects related to the theme as well as new ones. The contributions will be shown or held in succession over a limited period of time. All* contributions submitted will be presented; however, if the 48 hours should prove to be too short, banale potenziale will be extended. Individuals, teams or groups, initiatives and institutions are all equally invited to participate.

*Entries with racist, sexist, trans- and/or homophobic or other discriminatory or transgressive content will automatically be excluded. 

With the kind support of the City of Graz

Impressum