Train stations as vacant spaces?
Intact train stations are hubs, central locations of coming and going, deliveries and shipments; stories take place, happen, are told, unavoidable as well as casual encounters take place in a translation of experience. Using the train stations as residency studios for artists opens doors to spaces of opportunity for exchange, dialog and shared experiences for everyone and thus allow them to be places of a new purpose and encounter. Societal zones of negotiation have been changed and made more dynamic through the infrastructural development of the railway system. Traveling is a way to expand one’s individual perception, including, amongst others, along the geographical horizon. Local and international artists will become tour guides of movement at a standstill.
The Schloss Eggenberg brewery provides residential studios on the site for the Artist in Residence programme, and the residencies repeatedly cooperate with other projects of the Capital of Culture 2024, such as “Art your Village“, but also external cooperations such as the Bulgarian Cultural Institute Haus Wittgenstein in Vienna In individual cases, artists work with local businesses in the vicinity of the stations.
