transRobota - the 7. Baltic Contemporary Art Biennial in Szczecin is an event of the cycle Meeting Europe.
The event was conceived as a site specific exhibition designed for the area of Lasztownia peninsula (a postindustrial inner-city terrain that according to the long-term local urban planning is to be transformed into the residential and recreation area). Meanwhile Lasztownia is a highly underinvested and ruined area.
The organizers invited over 40 international artists to visit Lasztownia and to elaborate genuine projects for that particular area spanned in between its industrial past and yet uncertain future.
As a result of the artists’ visits to Lasztownia and their participation in the preparatory conference "" held in October 2006, the 31 project proposals were submitted and presented to the public in February 2007 during the second conference entitled .
On the basis of the curatorial committee recommendations, 15 projects were chosen for final realization. The chosen projects present different artistic approaches towards the artist’ role in the process of negotiating of the Lasztownia future as well as different perspectives on researching its past. The selected projects adapt different forms of artistic expression – visual and sound based installations, performances, artistic research programs, relational programs in collaboration with the audiences.
Meanwhile, the project underwent a change in location. Initially planned as a in situ project, the selected artists exhibited their artworks within the Museum of Contemporary Art, part of the National Museum in Szczecin. Despite the reLocation, residents and visitors are able to get a flavour for the board spectrum of works on display thanks to site- specific pieces staged as a three-dimensional animation.
Moreover, Ulrike Mohr's orange "Timeball Station", set up on a post-german bunker at Lasztownia, is visible from across the city. And German artist Roland Statmann invites the inhabitants to share with him their thoughts and artworks in his "Daydream Laboratory".
Meanwhile, Eva Hertzsch and Adam Page, together with Anna Paszkiewicz, have created a webpage www.artysci-lasztowni.pl, as both an information platform for cultural practitioners and a tool that enables residents to express their opinions about the future of Lasztownia.
The implementation of transRobota is accompanied by a bilingual publication.
Concept of transRobota project: Urban Art, Berlin
Curators: Marlena Chybowska & Magdalena Lewoc - Museum of Contemporary Art in Szczecin Anne Peschken & Marek Pisarsky – Kula e.V
Curatorial committee: Adam Mazur , editor of the Obieg art magazine, curator at the Ujazdowski Castle Contemporary Art Center in Warsaw
Christoph Tannert, director of the Kunstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin
Faye Tzanetoulakou, freelance art critic and curator based in Athens and London
Artists: Kuba Bakowski, Saim Demircan, Markus Draper, Roland Fuhrmann, Eva Hertzsch, Adam Page, Laura Horelli, Tilman Kuntzel, Maciej Kurak, Agnes Meyer-Brandis, Ulrike Mohr, Oliver Ressler, Otmar Sattel, Roland Stratmann, Urban Art, Julita Wójcik, Waldemar Wojciechowski
Co-organisers: Kula e.V., Berlin, Germany
Patronage: Ars Baltica