by Prof. Dr. Jörn Etzold,
Katarína Marková, Jana Kerima Stolzer
The project explores how social, affective (Lauren Berlant), and elementary (John Durham Peters) infrastructures undergo fundamental change in processes of deindustrialization. Its focus is on the contemporary Ruhr region, where it is also located. To situate the research on this region in current international discourses, however, its development will be compared with processes in two other regions: in the state of Minas Gerais ("General Mines") in Brazil, where unabated mining continues, and in post-industrial areas in Slovakia, where society has been restructured in a much more disruptive way since the early 1990s. The comparison is particularly concerned with the simultaneity and contemporaneity of the processes being researched. Analyzing performative works, installations, and the institutions that commission them, the project examines the—violent and utopian—social imaginary (Cornelius Castoriadis) of societies of excessive raw material extraction, the often-traumatic changes this imaginary undergoes when the resources are depleted, and the remnants of mining in societies and landscapes.
Project 1 consists of a frame project (“Art Institutions and Their Infrastructure in Deindustrialization and Extractivism”), of sub-project 1(“Feral Wastelands, Hollowed-Out Subsoil: The (Aesthetic) Experience of Discarded Landscapes. Narratives and New Alliances in a Post-Industrial Environment”), and of sub-project 2 (“Ruins and Remnants: Affective Infrastructures in Post-Industrial Lifeworlds”). In their interplay, the three projects research the sensory perception of the change in life-worlds, which in turn had been created by large-scale extraction of raw materials
Framework Project
by Prof. Dr. Jörn Etzold (PI)
The project explores the role of the arts—particularly theatre, performance art, and installations—and the institutions that commission them in the process of deindustrialisation that has taken place in the Ruhr area, focusing on the period since 1989. It examines the visions of the future, of living together, and of subjectivity that fuelled the large-scale infrastructural, societal, and artistic projects of the International Building Exhibition (IBA) Emscher Park from 1989 to 1999 and the founding of the art institutions of Kultur Ruhr GmbH in its wake, including the Ruhrtriennale festival, the PACT Zollverein dance venue (both 2002), and Urbane Künste Ruhr (an institution for art in public spaces, 2012). The project asks to what extent the works exhibited by these institutions address the trauma of deindustrialisation, as well as new concepts of the body, gender, and belonging. It also considers whether and how these works relate to the ongoing economy of commodity extraction in other parts of the planet.
The project aims to collect elements for an infrastructural theory of contemporary theatre, dance, performance, and installation. The main thesis is that what is known as “post-dramatic theatre” is actually post-industrial theatre in the unique setting of the Federal Republic of Germany, accompanying the presumed global victory of liberal democracy and the end of class struggle. Against the backdrop of the post-industrial landscapes of the Ruhr, artistic works explore these conditions, haunted by the spectres of ongoing extractive capitalist violence. To highlight the unique characteristics of the Ruhr area, the project will compare its art institutions and practices with those in an area of ongoing commodity extraction: the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. The open-air Inhotim museum in Brumadinho, which was initiated by mining magnate Bernardo de Mello Paz and is co-sponsored by corporations such as Vale, CEMIG, and Shell, has served as a model for EMSCHERKUNST.2010 and Urbane Künste Ruhr. Here, the park assembles artworks as well as probes of unspoiled “nature” amid a hollowed-out landscape.
See also:
Subproject 1
by Jana Kerima Stolzer (PhD candidate)
Traveling through the Ruhr means passing countless mining ruins, disused tracks, and decaying industrial ruins that have not (yet) found a new purpose. Evidence of an infrastructure originally constructed for the purposes of industrialisation, with a particular emphasis on the extraction of raw materials through mining activities. These post-industrial landscapes are characterised by devastation and irreversible transformations, and it is not uncommon for their soil to be contaminated with heavy metals, which poses significant challenges for future utilisation.
The question is posed as to whether these locations, which serve to dismantle the conceptual divide between nature and culture, have already become "non-places". Is the “end of landscape” a dynamic structure that also finds embodiment in wasteland? (Andermann) In the Ruhr area, in particular, the changes to the landscape have been addressed since the decision to end mining; projects such as the International Building Exhibition Emscher Park (1989–99) created new narratives for the region, reconciling industrial nature and renaturation with the brutal exploitation of the region's resources (Eiringhaus). Landscapes are the social construction of nature and the environment (Greider/Garkovich), which, especially in the Ruhr and its reprogramming, are often de-temporalized by obscuring their history with a new aesthetic of nature. (Mitchell; Nixon)
The dissertation project examines artistic works and practices situated in landscapes of extraction and/or that render such landscapes perceptible. Initially, projects located in the Ruhr and mostly commissioned by institutions will be analysed. A particular focus is placed on projects along the renaturalized Emscher, which are being realised on behalf of the Emschergenossenschaft as a temporary and now permanent sculpture path. This is also the cooperative that successfully resisted any requirements to maintain the river's cleanliness during the mining era (Brüggemeier/Rommelspacher). How can artistic works relate to this ambivalent relationship between a narrative of reconciliation and the brutal exploitation of the region, while at the same time understanding the wasteland as a place of “waiting” for a better future in which humans see themselves as planetary gardeners? (Clément) Concurrently, the renaturalised landscape of the Ruhr area demands extraction, a process that goes on in other regions. The persistent demand for energy continues to result in the severe erosion of landscapes and the undermining of the environment, manifesting itself as barren terrain in Minas Gerais, Brazil. Here, artistic works are analysed that address the persistent practice of exploiting land and Indigenous populations in the context of the "green turn“–and at the same time can be read in interaction with landscape degradation in the Ruhr.
See also:
Subproject 2
by Katharína Marková Jurani (PhD Candidate)
This subproject investigates the transformation of affective infrastructures in post-industrial societies, focusing on the Ruhr region in Germany in dialogue with post-communist regions such as Slovakia and the Czech Republic. It analyses how emotions, including nostalgia, grief, and melancholy shape social and spatial realities following the decline of industry. Rather than treating these affects solely as responses to loss, the project examines them as productive forces that generate alternative imaginaries and modes of living within post-industrial landscapes.
The research explores changing formations of mutual care in societies that have undergone profound shifts in subjectivity, labour divisions, and gender relations since 1989. It examines which new forms of coexistence emerge in response to the erosion of industrial employment and welfare structures, with particular attention to informal and unregulated practices developing within industrial ruins and remnants.
Furthermore, the project analyses the role of art in processes of deindustrialisation. It investigates both the infrastructures of art production and artistic practices—such as site-specific installation, theatre, performance, and activist interventions—that engage materially and affectively with landscapes shaped by extractive industries.
See also:
by Prof. Dr. Jörn Etzold,
Katarína Marková, Jana Kerima Stolzer
The project explores how social, affective (Lauren Berlant), and elementary (John Durham Peters) infrastructures undergo fundamental change in processes of deindustrialization. Its focus is on the contemporary Ruhr region, where it is also located. To situate the research on this region in current international discourses, however, its development will be compared with processes in two other regions: in the state of Minas Gerais ("General Mines") in Brazil, where unabated mining continues, and in post-industrial areas in Slovakia, where society has been restructured in a much more disruptive way since the early 1990s. The comparison is particularly concerned with the simultaneity and contemporaneity of the processes being researched. Analyzing performative works, installations, and the institutions that commission them, the project examines the—violent and utopian—social imaginary (Cornelius Castoriadis) of societies of excessive raw material extraction, the often-traumatic changes this imaginary undergoes when the resources are depleted, and the remnants of mining in societies and landscapes.
Project 1 consists of a frame project (“Art Institutions and Their Infrastructure in Deindustrialization and Extractivism”), of sub-project 1(“Feral Wastelands, Hollowed-Out Subsoil: The (Aesthetic) Experience of Discarded Landscapes. Narratives and New Alliances in a Post-Industrial Environment”), and of sub-project 2 (“Ruins and Remnants: Affective Infrastructures in Post-Industrial Lifeworlds”). In their interplay, the three projects research the sensory perception of the change in life-worlds, which in turn had been created by large-scale extraction of raw materials
Framework Project
by Prof. Dr. Jörn Etzold (PI)
The project explores the role of the arts—particularly theatre, performance art, and installations—and the institutions that commission them in the process of deindustrialisation that has taken place in the Ruhr area, focusing on the period since 1989. It examines the visions of the future, of living together, and of subjectivity that fuelled the large-scale infrastructural, societal, and artistic projects of the International Building Exhibition (IBA) Emscher Park from 1989 to 1999 and the founding of the art institutions of Kultur Ruhr GmbH in its wake, including the Ruhrtriennale festival, the PACT Zollverein dance venue (both 2002), and Urbane Künste Ruhr (an institution for art in public spaces, 2012). The project asks to what extent the works exhibited by these institutions address the trauma of deindustrialisation, as well as new concepts of the body, gender, and belonging. It also considers whether and how these works relate to the ongoing economy of commodity extraction in other parts of the planet.
The project aims to collect elements for an infrastructural theory of contemporary theatre, dance, performance, and installation. The main thesis is that what is known as “post-dramatic theatre” is actually post-industrial theatre in the unique setting of the Federal Republic of Germany, accompanying the presumed global victory of liberal democracy and the end of class struggle. Against the backdrop of the post-industrial landscapes of the Ruhr, artistic works explore these conditions, haunted by the spectres of ongoing extractive capitalist violence. To highlight the unique characteristics of the Ruhr area, the project will compare its art institutions and practices with those in an area of ongoing commodity extraction: the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais. The open-air Inhotim museum in Brumadinho, which was initiated by mining magnate Bernardo de Mello Paz and is co-sponsored by corporations such as Vale, CEMIG, and Shell, has served as a model for EMSCHERKUNST.2010 and Urbane Künste Ruhr. Here, the park assembles artworks as well as probes of unspoiled “nature” amid a hollowed-out landscape.
See also:
Subproject 1
by Jana Kerima Stolzer (PhD candidate)
Traveling through the Ruhr means passing countless mining ruins, disused tracks, and decaying industrial ruins that have not (yet) found a new purpose. Evidence of an infrastructure originally constructed for the purposes of industrialisation, with a particular emphasis on the extraction of raw materials through mining activities. These post-industrial landscapes are characterised by devastation and irreversible transformations, and it is not uncommon for their soil to be contaminated with heavy metals, which poses significant challenges for future utilisation.
The question is posed as to whether these locations, which serve to dismantle the conceptual divide between nature and culture, have already become "non-places". Is the “end of landscape” a dynamic structure that also finds embodiment in wasteland? (Andermann) In the Ruhr area, in particular, the changes to the landscape have been addressed since the decision to end mining; projects such as the International Building Exhibition Emscher Park (1989–99) created new narratives for the region, reconciling industrial nature and renaturation with the brutal exploitation of the region's resources (Eiringhaus). Landscapes are the social construction of nature and the environment (Greider/Garkovich), which, especially in the Ruhr and its reprogramming, are often de-temporalized by obscuring their history with a new aesthetic of nature. (Mitchell; Nixon)
The dissertation project examines artistic works and practices situated in landscapes of extraction and/or that render such landscapes perceptible. Initially, projects located in the Ruhr and mostly commissioned by institutions will be analysed. A particular focus is placed on projects along the renaturalized Emscher, which are being realised on behalf of the Emschergenossenschaft as a temporary and now permanent sculpture path. This is also the cooperative that successfully resisted any requirements to maintain the river's cleanliness during the mining era (Brüggemeier/Rommelspacher). How can artistic works relate to this ambivalent relationship between a narrative of reconciliation and the brutal exploitation of the region, while at the same time understanding the wasteland as a place of “waiting” for a better future in which humans see themselves as planetary gardeners? (Clément) Concurrently, the renaturalised landscape of the Ruhr area demands extraction, a process that goes on in other regions. The persistent demand for energy continues to result in the severe erosion of landscapes and the undermining of the environment, manifesting itself as barren terrain in Minas Gerais, Brazil. Here, artistic works are analysed that address the persistent practice of exploiting land and Indigenous populations in the context of the "green turn“–and at the same time can be read in interaction with landscape degradation in the Ruhr.
See also:
Subproject 2
by Katharína Marková Jurani (PhD Candidate)
This subproject investigates the transformation of affective infrastructures in post-industrial societies, focusing on the Ruhr region in Germany in dialogue with post-communist regions such as Slovakia and the Czech Republic. It analyses how emotions, including nostalgia, grief, and melancholy shape social and spatial realities following the decline of industry. Rather than treating these affects solely as responses to loss, the project examines them as productive forces that generate alternative imaginaries and modes of living within post-industrial landscapes.
The research explores changing formations of mutual care in societies that have undergone profound shifts in subjectivity, labour divisions, and gender relations since 1989. It examines which new forms of coexistence emerge in response to the erosion of industrial employment and welfare structures, with particular attention to informal and unregulated practices developing within industrial ruins and remnants.
Furthermore, the project analyses the role of art in processes of deindustrialisation. It investigates both the infrastructures of art production and artistic practices—such as site-specific installation, theatre, performance, and activist interventions—that engage materially and affectively with landscapes shaped by extractive industries.
See also: