tranzit is a unique network of civic associations working independently in the field of contemporary art in Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania and across the borders of a wider Europe. Its main goal is to support and articulate emancipatory practices, establish connections between culture and society by moving across geographies, generations, and political realms.
For more than two decades, tranzit has been a critical (and self-critical) platform, which challenged established canons of post-war European (art) histories. It has promoted contemporary art practices, theory and social discourses with an aim to contribute to present-day mobilizations of solidarity and community building in a Europe of narrowing nationalism, cultural essentialism, growing economic egoism, and social as well as gender inequality.
Each tranzit works under its own conditions in a variety of local cultural and social contexts, using different formats and methods to contextualize, generate or host theoretical, artistic and activist debates around today’s urgencies. Activities range from exhibitions, thematic projects, seminars, publications based on long-term research and participatory interventions into the public discourse.
We believe in the relevance of contemporary art institutions as places of liberty, as egalitarian spaces of unbiased, poetical and political research and education. We believe in experimentation; in resistant, locally rooted, cross-border cultural practices; and in the risk of incomplete theory.
tranzit’s main partner is the ERSTE Foundation.