transitstation :: viewpoint #1
transitstation is an international organisation dedicated to live art performance events and research. I have curated and produced transitstation since 2003.
The curatorial programme for exhibition-as-event within a scaffolding framework was devised by Dagmar Glausnitzer-Smith at Kingston University London in 2003. We presented transitstation in Berlin in 2005, marking the project’s first fully international event.
A year later in Edinburgh we refined the co-curator concept, creating a ‘classic transitstation’. The first run concluded in Copenhagen in 2010, under the auspices of the Royal Danish Academy.
We relaunched transitstation in January 2021 after a ten-year break. The new website features new collaborative projects for the pandemic era, profiles of artists and organisers, extensive documentation of past events, and practical information for artists and project partners.
London 2003
The first transitstation Exhibition-as-Event was Dagmar Glausnitzer-Smith’s valedictory show as a Stanley Picker Research Fellow in Fine Art. Dagmar created a three day event featuring on each of three successive days continuous performance art, theatre, and music.
transitstation London set standards for curating and producing mixed-disciplinary performance, encouraging young and established artists and students to explore their creative potential within a supportive and challenging collaborative framework. The transitstation scaffolding system provided that framework replete with all of its practical and philosophical connotations.
Berlin 2005
The second transitstation took place at the Gebauer Höfe Berlin, an ensemble of 19th Century textile and engineering buildings on the River Spree in Berlin Charlottenburg.
Dagmar Glausnitzer-Smith and Charles F. Ryder refined the transitstation concept, creating, along with the London artists and their Berlin-based colleagues, the first non-stop 24-hour weekend.
Throughout preparation, performance and production, the transitstation artist forms the centre of the work, both as a maker and as a participant in the project’s social and intellectual discourse.
Edinburgh 2006
For the third transitstation stop organizers Dagmar Glausnitzer-Smith and Charles Ryder chose Ocean Terminal, a vast shopping and leisure centre at the heart of Edinburgh’s regenerated waterfront.
transitstation Edinburgh represented a maturation of the production methodolgy: the on-site logistical preparation, publicity, networking and accommodation for transitstation was managed by the host city partners, artists’ collective TotalKunst along with curators Rosemary Strang and Aaron McCloskey.
Ocean Terminal offered a paradoxical atmosphere to the viewers’ experience, a confrontation between the worlds of consumerism culture.
Copenhagen 2010
The fourth transitstation stop was Copenhagen, Denmark, in partnership with the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts at Festsalen.
The final schedule with set times for the artists’ work was revised twice on April 16th due to the cancellation of flights for 20 arriving artists due to the eruption and dusty clouds of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in Iceland.
transitstation introduced EduAction Day on Monday April 19, following the transitstation 24-hour weekend. Artists presented lectures and performance art workshops, including theoretical discussion groups reflecting on the concept of exhibition-as-event. Our Danish hosts artists provided food and drink.
transitstation 2021 relaunch video
featuring NASA footage with soundtrack by robin rimbaud – scanner
produced by transitstation ©2021
